


To The Grave

by Incy Little Spider (1ncylilspider)



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Dubious Consent, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Sexual Content, Friendship, Hurt, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Oral Sex, Pain, Porn Video, Rough Sex, Sex Toys, Sexual Abuse, Sexual Assault
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-27
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 15:21:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/611282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1ncylilspider/pseuds/Incy%20Little%20Spider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Penelope can't sleep.</p><p>She's bored. It's late at night. She needs something to amuse herself.</p><p>But when she decides to browse through the bowels of the internet, she finds something that completely horrifies her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Garcia

The neon-green light of the bedside clock told her it was half past two in the morning.

It was one of those nights where sleep alluded her and boredom itched through her body. Mumbling to herself, she got heavily out of her plush-toy swaddled bed. She paced around her brightly colored apartment, switching on lights, trying to tire herself out. She cluttered around her little kitchen, making herself a cup of steaming cocoa, before sauntering off to the living room.

She nursed the mug to her bosomy chest, flicking through the channels of her TV, trying to find anything interesting to watch. She watched a couple of late-night music videos, but they were all utterly boring. The restlessness made her purple painted nails click at her knee, fisting the warm fabric of her stripy pajama pants, scratching at the loose threads.

When she finished her drink, she still didn’t feel any more prone to sleep. She switched off the TV, popped into the toilet even though she didn’t really need to go and then wandered back into her bedroom. After lying on mattress and staring at the ceiling for two minutes, she sighed grumpily and turned around on her side. 

Finally she got her laptop from the floor where it was charging next to a powerpoint. She may as well check her emails or look at stupid Youtube videos to make her laugh. She sat cross-legged with the laptop perched on her knees, pulling a few of her favorite stuffed animals under her chin.

The minutes ticked on as she trawled through videos of animals being stupid or cute, cooing and grinning over them. She didn’t feel herself getting any more sleepy though and after about the sixtieth cute animal or baby video, she was getting bored again. 

Her mind felt like a finely processed pile of mush. Half-heartedly, she decided maybe a spot of porn would be entertaining. She wasn’t exactly in _that_ kind’ve mood but she didn’t know what else to do to pass the time. She could’ve gotten some of her _special_ toys out of the drawer, but she couldn’t really be bothered. 

It always amused her how you had to write the filthiest but corniest phrase into the search engine when you looked at internet porn. It reminded her of some Casanova Wannabe at a bar or a pimply faced kid trying to be sexy and outrageous and completely failing. Seriously... _hot young blonde slut fucked by monster cock? Foxy bitch dominated by massive throbbing dick?_ How could you not laugh at that? It sounded absolutely ridiculous. 

If she was in the right kind’ve mood, she’d would’ve found it a lot more alluring but right now she just giggled through the search results, writing in the most debauched phrases she could think to find something else to laugh at. The videos she’d click on were boring. She admired the more muscled men she’d find, but internet porn always focused on the woman instead which kinda annoyed her. She found their completely fake and bored sounding moans amusing though - that shit was hilarious.

“My boobs are like ten times better then hers,” she murmured, propping her head on her fist and staring blandly at the computer screen. Not a single thrum of excitement went through her. Maybe on other days she would’ve found this a very good way to spend time, but not tonight. 

She went back to the search engine, sick of seeing leering women thrusting their boobs into the camera and started searching for a bit of gay porn instead. She usually liked this more then heterosexual porn. Two hot guys getting naked together gave her plenty to look at. She usually stuck with the strong, muscled types.

As she searched for anything to watch, she realized she’d seen nearly all these videos before. They started getting repetitive after awhile. Everyone did the same thing and it just lost it’s novelty. 

Maybe she should look at different kinds of gay porn for once. She stuck so exclusively to fit burly guys getting it on and barely ever strayed from that. She started typing in other dirty phrases to find anything worth watching.

“Ewww,” she whispered, wrinkling up her nose at a rather chubby, hairy guy slobbering all over a younger, emo type. She wondered how awkward it would be if you didn’t find your other co-star attractive at all, or if you couldn’t get it up. She supposed some of them would’ve taken a pill and then faked all the moaning. 

Working with profilers meant she picked up things about the stars of the videos she didn’t think anyone else did. How one person had a definite sadistic streak, or if another guy seemed to be a little introverted. Or when they both seemed to be having a testosterone match and were trying to get one up on the other, like two dogs fighting to see who was the dominant.

It was interesting, but not...y’now... _interesting_ interesting. Penelope chided herself a little for thinking so much about these people’s personalities and how’d they be like in real life, when clearly she was just supposed to be focused on what they’re bodies were doing. She couldn’t help it. She couldn’t ever just see any of the people involved as an attractive piece of meat to drool over. Her mind always strayed down what they were like in the real world.

Which probably defeated the purpose of looking at porn, but whatever. She didn’t care.

She was deep in the bowels of dirty internet videos now, clicking on links and getting into more and more old and obscure clips. They seemed to get of lower and lower quality as she searched, with corny romantic music playing that juxtaposed hilariously with the lustful images on the screen and the stars got more and more fake and bored sounding. 

Sometimes she’d stumble on something that seemed alright, but then she’d find another five that were absolutely laughable. Some of the people seemed to be genuinely attracted to each other, but others just pawed at each other awkwardly and she kinda felt bad for them. She’d been a rebellious teenager and a wild young adult and she’d had plenty of ridiculously uncomfortable encounters with people she had no interest in.

Bored and finally starting to yawn a bit, she went down page after page, looking for any funny title to make her laugh which she could click on. She was on the fifteenth page of some seedy site which she’d hadn’t really been enjoying so far, because the videos had taken a step further into the sleazy area and just gotten plain creepy. The camera man had actually appeared in some of them and he was a guy that she’d walk past any other day, but when put in a sexual situation made her stomach curl.

Sure there had been plenty of very predatory men and women she’d seen in these videos and she’d seen worse at work. However she’d always had a problem with wanting to explore everything on the internet, warts and all until she retreated to fluffy kittens to clean her mind up again.

One of the videos hidden away in the middle of the sixteenth page had a particular stupid title. _Shy twink has virgin asshole brutally fucked._ She rolled her eyes and giggled a bit. She didn’t know how someone could find that title appealing in anyway possible, unless you were a complete sadist. It was interesting how gay porn had all this lingo to it. Heterosexual porn was pretty basic...bitches and sluts getting fucked, but with gay porn there were twinks and bears and daddy’s and studs. You had to learn all this new slang and she found that kinda cool, like you were learning a new language.

She was about to scroll down and maybe look at something which was a bit less violent, when she paused in mid click. Glancing back at the clipart of the video she’d just laughed at, her forehead furrowed up in confusion. She readjusted her glasses and squinted at the figure a little closer. There was something...very familiar about the guy’s body build and floppy hairstyle. He was lying face down on a sofa and the picture was blurry, so she couldn’t make him out that well, but...

Naah. She was being stupid. There was no way.

She was about to click away, when her eyes swept over the date of the video. It was pretty old, having been released in 2004. She felt something uncomfortable stir in the pit of her stomach, before curiosity got the better of her and she clicked the link.

Waiting for the video to buffer, she didn’t know why she felt like bugs were crawling over her skin. She went down to the comments as she wanted for it to load.

 _“Fuckng great!”_ said the first one. _“Why can’t I get fucked like that?”_

“ _Who’s that sweet twink?_ ” another one read. _“I’d love to make him scream.”_

 _“I dunno,”_ said the third and final comment. _“That twink looked like he was gonna cry which woz a boner killer for me._

She scrolled back up again. The black jumpy title screen told her that this archive video had been filmed in 2000. Then it flickered onto what looked like a living room, with warm honey lighting and a comfy looking couch with a few cushions and a woolen blanket thrown over the back. 

“Sit down, sit down...” said a friendly voice that she recognized as the icky camera-man from most of the other videos she’d seen on the site. A gawky, skinny kid shuffled over, shoulders up under his ears and sat down in front of the camera. 

Penelope clapped her hand over her mouth with shock, nearly dropping her lap-top. She slammed on pause immediately, feeling her skin crawl and her heart plunge down to the pit of her stomach. 

There was no mistaking it. 

That was Reid. 

A terribly young Reid, who looked like he was still a teenager, staring down at his fidgeting hands, his hair over his eyes. He was dressed in a shabby corduroy's and a bulky sweater that drowned his frame in fabric. He looked...scruffier then usual. Maybe it was the holes and loose threads in his clothes, or the bags under his eyes. He didn’t look like the goofy, chatterbox Spencer she knew...

Wait...he’d would’ve been...nineteen if this video was filmed in 2000. 

Her mind clicked over as everything fell into place at once.

He’d had his mother committed to a mental hospital when he was 18. He’d joined the FBI at what...21?

“Baby _no_ ,” she whispered, feeling the familiar maternal urge tug violently at the middle of her chest. She swallowed hard, feeling like she was about to cry. Was this his only video? Were there more?

She should click out and never look at the video again. 

She had no idea what compelled her to click the play button.

“God man,” said the camera-man as Spencer twisted uncomfortably on the couch, not looking at him. “You’re so nervous. Why you nervous for?”

Spencer bit into his lip and cracked an uncertain little smile. 

“Uh...uh...” he fell quiet, swallowing, Adam’s apple bobbing in his skinny throat. “I don’t...really...do this...a lot.”

“Yeah?” the camera-man was overly friendly in a very slimy, fake way that made shivers run up and down Penelope’s spine. He’d been much more lewd with the other people in his videos and she didn’t like how... _nice_ he was being with Spencer. Spencer just seemed so _young_ it was just...she just...felt like going into the screen and bundling him in a hug and taking him somewhere safe.

“You don’t mind me askin’ a few questions d’you?” the camera-man asked lightly, as if coaxing an anxious pet. “Jus’ so we can get to know you...see what you like and stuff.”

Spencer made a small sound in the back of his throat and shrugged, tucking his hair behind his ear. It slithered back over his big, brown eyes a few seconds later and the camera-man shifted in his seat.

“You don’t do this a lot huh? This your first video?”

The boy nodded and Penelope felt her insides untwist a tiny bit with relief. 

“Yeah?” the camera-man’s voice was very soft, as if he thought this would put the boy at ease. It just made him curl up even more, longs limbs pulling into his body like a folding up marionette.

“You been fucked before?”

Penelope saw him flinch, recoiling back. It was a very small movement, that she knew anyone else wouldn’t pay any attention to. She knew Spencer better then anyone who’d ever watched this video and she knew they probably had no idea how uncomfortable he was right now. 

“Don’t be shy...” the older man was still putting that comforting tone on, even though his voice was getting lower and lower by the second. Spencer’s knees drew up to his chest and he wrapped his arms protectively around himself. 

“I’m not...I’m not...shy...” he murmured squeezing his knees tight. “Uh...uh...I’ve...done...some stuff...”

“Like what?” the camera-man cut in immediately. Spencer’s cheeks were going pink and he was sucking his lips between his teeth.

“When...I was...uh...17,” he whispered and to anyone else, the tremor in his voice wouldn’t have been noticeable at all. Penelope picked it up instantly. The camera-man’s breathing seemed to be getting more labored.

“Yeah?”

“Uh...it was just...an old friend of mine...he was a bit...intoxicated...um...there was some...mutual mastu...mastu...”

“Hand-jobs?” the camera-man suggested and Spencer looked down to the side, swallowing before he murmured a tiny affirmative. 

“Anything else?” the older man probably thought his voice was very soothing, but it was making her feel filthier and filthier by the second.

“Yes...uh...there was...oral...interco...”

“Did he fuck you?”

Spencer gave his head a nervous shake and the other man moved in his chair again. When he spoke again, his voice seemed tighter and breathier.

“Has anyone ever fucked you before?”

The boy was quiet for a few seconds. His cheeks were glowing red.

“Um...um...he did put...fingers...and...a bit of his...um...penis...but it hurt so he stopped...”

“Aww,” the camera-man drawled. “Did he make you cry?”

“No...no...it just...I didn’t...”

“So he finger-fucked you? Have you ever put anything up your ass?”

It was like watching a train-wreck. She wished she could look away. The camera was slowly panning up and down his skinny body appreciatively and it made her stomach clench up. 

“Yes...” Spencer looked like he wanted to shrink away into the floor and hide.

“Did you like it?”

The boy nodded and she saw the tiny tremors running through him like a rabbit caught in a bear-trap. The camera-man exhaled harshly, shifting around again. 

“I bet people tell you how pretty you are all the time.”

He shook his head, shoulders locked under his ears. All friendliness in the man’s voice had been dropped now and he was openly leering at the shaking boy.

“I can’t wait to put my cock up your beautiful...”

There was a sudden knock and the kid’s head cracked up, pink spit-slicked lips escaping his teeth as his eyes went huge and fearful.

“It’s okay...just calm down...” he told the trembling kid in a low voice. “It’s just the guy filming us.”

There were sounds of him getting to his feet, before his footsteps thumped across the room. A front door opened and she a few grunted greetings. The boy had stuck his nails in his mouth as he stared down fixedly at his feet, hair like a shield over his face.

“Come and sit down...” the two sets of footsteps thumped back into the room again and a lumbering figure dropped down on the other end of the couch, crossing his arms over his chest. He stubbed out the end of his cigarette and wouldn’t look at the camera either. 

Penelope was expecting a surge of hatred towards him, but she couldn’t bring herself to it. He was a tanned, muscled guy with a goatee and thick black hair and tattoos all up his arms, hands and fingers. The way he was sitting with his jaw set and his eyes staring off to the side told her that he didn’t want to be there either. She wondered if this guy had money problems too.

“So,” said the camera-man, completely at ease. “He’s a cutie isn’t he?”

The larger of the two just shrugged, lips thinning. Spencer was playing with the ends of his lumpy sweater sleeves.

“Well...uh...” the camera-man was quiet for about a second, swallowing roughly. “Come take the camera and we can get started.”

The tattooed man got up and the screen got shaky for a few seconds as they changed places. The man in charge walked into the frame and knelt on the ground before the boy, putting a comforting hand on his knee. He was an unremarkable looking guy - he looked quite a bit older then the other two. The tattooed guy had looked like he’d been in his mid to late twenties, but the man in charge looked like he was about forty. He had blondish-orange hair, was a bit on the paunchy side and had sunken in eyes and a sallow tinge to his skin. Definitely someone you wouldn’t look twice at...probably would seem quite mild in day-to-day life but under the shine of the warm lights, he looked like some kind’ve slimy dead fish. 

“Baby?” he said to the boy who was still tugging at his shirt sleeves, chewing at the fabric until they were soggy and spit-soaked.

“We wanna see you,” he said in a voice like he was talking to someone much younger. “Be a good boy and take off your clothes for me.”

She had to pause the video then, rubbing viciously at her eyes feeling her insides clench and unclench with repulsion. Spencer just looked too young. Too skinny. Maybe other people watching thought he was acting shy on purpose to be cute or something, maybe this sleazy middle-aged man thought he was as well. But he wasn’t. They didn’t know. 

But she couldn’t just...click away from the video. It was weird - she felt like she’d be abandoning him if she left. Even if it happened years and years ago, it was like he’d be safer if she was around, like she was sending her protective aura through the screen. This wasn’t the Spencer of today - a grown man who could look after himself. This was a kid. She gave her head a little shake, biting back the tears. Her logic made no sense at all, but she didn’t care. She grabbed a fluffy toy and hugged it under her chin, took a deep breath to calm herself down and clicked play again. 

Spencer just sat still for a few seconds, completely focused on the wet fabric in his mouth.  The older man’s short, stubby fingered hand took Spencer’s wrist, stroking it, pulling it down from his mouth.

“Don’t be scared,” he said gently and his hand slipped over onto his stomach. His fingers pushed under the hem, revealing a stripe of his skin. Penelope heard the older man’s breath catch a little as the trembling muscles shrunk away from his touch, belly sucking in. He slid his hand up and Spencer clenched his eyes shut. His sweater and shirt were pushed up under his chin, revealing a stretch of smooth, creamy skin. Penelope eyes were drawn to how many ribs she could count. She wondered when his last proper meal had been.

“Gorgeous boy,” the man’s voice was rough and rich as his fingers hooked in the teenager’s pants, pulling them down over his hipbones. The woman thought they protruded way too much to be healthy. 

“ _Oh..._ ” the man tugged the waist-band of the teen’s underwear down a little, revealing the soft curls of his pubic hair. She looked away, stomach turning. 

“Let me see those pretty eyes...”

Spencer’s breathing was short as he blinked up at him, doe-eyed and scared. His hands went down and tried to cover himself up, but the man caught his wrist and pushed it away, squeezing warningly. The boy buried his face away into a cushion and shivered as a short, thick finger stroked over the ticklish skin at his neck. The older man rubbed him slowly through the fabric of his underwear with his other hand and soon the boy was starting to squirm, harsh breath muffled by the cushion. 

He pushed the kid gently onto his back, nestled into the crook of the arm-rest. His knees locked together, hair over his face as he shrunk away into the couch cushions. 

She really shouldn’t be watching this.

“There we go,” said the man as he pushed Spencer’s corduroy's down to his ankles. He pulled off his battered shoes and laughed a little, smirking over into the camera. 

“Isn’t that cute? Odd socks...and...” he gripped his bony ankle firmly, massaging it before his fingers trailed up to the boy’s underwear again, snapping the waist-band. “Batman undies?”

Spencer covered his face up with his long fingers, flushing bright scarlet. The man rubbed his belly soothingly and the boy’s knees squeezed together even tighter.

“Don’t worry...I like it...I might leave them on for you, okay?” 

The boy nodded from behind his hands. It made him look disturbingly child-like. She heard the new camera-man swallow and it sounded almost uncomfortable to her, as though he was feeling just as nauseated as she was. 

“Arms up...” the blond man instructed and after a few seconds Spencer obeyed, biting at his lip, eyes clenched shut. His sweater was stripped off and discarded, his corduroy’s quickly joining the pile before he flopped back down onto the couch. The man started kneading him even harder through his underwear, unzipping his own jeans as he did so, unbuttoning his shirt. 

He crawled up onto the couch, planting his knees on either side of Spencer’s hips, completely naked. He pressed his lips into his too sharp collarbone and slipped a hand between his coltish legs, as he lapped at the flushing skin.

Penelope had to look away again when he reached into the boy’s underwear, pulling out something she really didn’t want to see. She covered her eyes with her hand and half-watched through her fingers, fixing her eyes on Spencer’s face instead. He still had his eyes closed, fingers moving like nervous spider-legs at his chest. His skinny chest was rising up and down and his breathing was getting more and more harsh as the man nuzzled into his neck, stroking harder and harder between his legs.

“Awww,” he whispered into the boy’s ear. “Little kitten’s blushing...”

He stroked a finger over his neck and down his chest, making the kid squeak. The man’s fat tongue slid out and swiped a trail of saliva down his neck and then flicked at his ear, fondling him languidly. Spencer shoved his knuckles into his mouth, as his hips jerked into the man’s touch and when his fist was pulled away and pinned down, he started gasping and bucking uncontrollably.

The man was enjoying this much more then anyone else in the room. He ground down on the boy’s thigh with a slick sound that made bile surge in Penelope’s throat. He slithered up further and pushed the length of his thick, leaking cock against the flushed skin of Spencer’s stomach, just letting him feel it. The boy put his head to the side and Penelope saw his face suck in with disgust. The man just rocked against him harder and harder, moaning into his ear.

“Baby boy” he cooed, taking Spencer’s cheek and tracing his stubby fingers over his lips. “Can you suck on Daddy’s cock?”

His breathing got heavy when the kid looked down at his hands and glowed an even darker red, before letting out a long rattling breath. The man stroked his hair and got to his feet before he took the boy’s hand and pulled him down onto the carpet on his knees. Spencer’s fingers fluttered nervously by his sides, eyes pointed down at the ground but the man took his chin, prying his mouth open before he stepped forward.

Without a word of warning, he was sliding his cock down the teenager’s throat. Spencer retched immediately and pulled off, a glistening string of spit breaking and then dripping from his mouth. The man allowed him a two-second break, before taking a firm hold off his head and pushing back through his lips. 

“There we go...there we go...” his voice was shaking with pleasure as the boy’s lips stretched wide to accommodate the thick, heavy organ in his mouth, eyes still clenched shut.

“Watch the teeth...” he breathed as he thrust the slick shaft heavily up and down his throat. “Open your eyes...oh yes...sweet boy...”

He pumped in harder with soggy, slurping noises, fingers tangled in the floppy chestnut hair. The boy was gagging helplessly, hands pushed into his lap, drool pouring from his mouth as his eyes fluttered with each brutal snap of the man’s hips. Every part of his body seemed to jerk painfully with each vicious slam through his lips. 

She had to look away, staring at the man’s sallow-skinned body instead. She felt her stomach roll at the ripples running through his beer-belly as his hips smacked like a wet piston inside the boy’s skull. 

“Good boy...good boy...”

Spencer jerked away violently, heaving for oxygen, lips and chin gleaming with saliva. He coughed and wheezed, nose and eyes streaming before the man took his chin again. He held the engorged phallus with his other hand and slowly traced the boy’s sodden lips with the plump purple head. 

The boy’s eyes fell shut again, still gasping for breath as clear tracks of mucus poured from his nose, pre-ejaculatory fluid mixing with the spit and snot. The man’s cock slipped back in, more gently this time, the man cooing at him gently, cradling his chin. Spencer’s cheek bulged as the man angled slightly and pushed against the inside of his mouth. 

“Use you’re tongue...open you’re eyes...”

Spencer obeyed, slipping the tip of his tongue out, flicking tentatively across the moist head and then flicking back in again. The man’s fingers squeezed his chin in that warning way and the teenager slipped his tongue back out against the underside of the furiously straining cock. The man slid the slick appendage across the boy’s tongue, groaning as Spencer clenched his knees together, fingers fluttering in his lap.

“Taste nice?” his voice was feathery soft as Spencer’s eyes glistened and trickles of pre-come oozed down his throat. “You like eating Daddy’s come don’t you?”

He pushed his thumb into the side of his mouth, forcing it to stay open. The teen clenched his eyes shut, Adam’s apple bobbing uncontrollably, helplessly swallowing buckets of saliva mixed up with the man’s semen. He started choking on his own spit and the man let him go again. He gave him about five seconds to get his breath back before he pulled him back to his feet. He led him over onto the couch again, lying him down on his back.

“Oh...you’ve ruined your Batman undies...”

The boy just made a sound a bird being trodden on which made the man laugh as he knelt down at the floor by the kid’s legs. He slowly edged the sodden material down his thighs, before peeling them off. Spencer covered his face with his fingers again as the man put the garment carefully on the arm-rest. He slid in closer and pushed the teenager’s legs up and apart. Penelope focused on the mismatched socks trembling in the air as the man glanced up into the camera. 

“Hey man...pass me that shit behind you...on the shelf."

The camera-man grunted a little as the man rubbed the boy’s tummy soothingly, his chest started to go up and down even faster with fright. 

“I stocked up just for you baby,” his voice had gotten all soft, like he was talking to a terrified pet. “But I won’t use the more...extreme gadgets on you, we’ll go nice and easy okay?”

He glared up at the camera-man who dropped a black plastic bag onto the ground with a clutter, like he’d been carrying a poisonous spider. 

“If you broke anything, you’re fucking paying for it,” he snarled at him, rummaging through it one handed, still stroking the teenager’s belly with the other. Spencer fingers were curled around his chin, his eyes flicking anxiously between the bag and the camera. Penelope shifted around uncomfortably as his big brown eyes stared into hers through the computer screen. The camera-man made a small uneasy sound as well.

“Here we are,” the man murmured from the ground as he pulled out a bottle of lube from the bag. Leaning up on the cushions on his elbows, he squeezed some on his fingers, slicking them together. Penelope focused her eyes on the boy’s socks again. They were thread-bare and old...one was black and green striped but the green was fading to grey. The other was purple with an orange heel and toes and there was a rip where his bony ankle stuck out and...

“Oh...oh...oh...oh...” 

...and Spencer sounded like he was in pain and her eyes shot over to his face at once. His limbs were twisting in on themselves and he buried his face away into the cushions, letting out a half-strangled sob. His gawky long legs shook as the man took a firm hold of his hip, pressing the pad of his finger against his most intimate spot.

“You like Daddy playin’ with your cute little hole?”

Spencer whimpered and writhed but the man held out tight, using a second lube-slicked finger to tickle his entrance slightly. His trembling belly was dampening faster and faster with his dripping fluids, his body flushed red and streaked with sweat. The man’s voice was tight and short as he prodded and teased the tensed, fluttering pucker.

“Open up...you’ll only make it hurt...”

She didn’t know whether Spencer was crying or not, face muffled in the cushions.

“C’mon look up...smile for the camera...look up sweet boy, c’mon...tha’ss it...”

Spencer peered up at him through his fingers. This was all obviously too overwhelming for him, everything shaking as the man tried to push his short, thick finger inside of his skinny body. He suddenly squeezed hard at Spencer’s thigh and the boy gasped, before the man twisted his finger all the way in to the knuckle. Spencer let out another keening cry, tears rolling over his fingers, knees trembling.

“It...it...ithurtsithurtsithurts...” he bleated out and Penelope pressed her face into her stuffed animal under her chin, feeling the tears bubbling down her cheeks. The man’s fondling slowed for a second as he pulled out to apply more lube to his fingers. Pinching the inside of his thigh, he pushed back in again.

“I’ss okay baby...i’ss okay...jus’ breathe...” 

“Pleasepleaseplease it hurts, it _hurts_...”

Spencer stomach sucked in on itself, everything clenching up as he tried to get himself under control. The man made little comforting circles on his belly, finger still crooked inside him. He twisted for a bit until he hit something that made the teenager’s back arch up all at once and his legs fall open even wider, surprised moan escaping his lips, cheeks soggy with tears. 

“I knew you’d like that...” the man leered, teasing around the kid’s prostate, trying to slide a second finger in. Both of their breathing was short and uncontrolled as he grabbed the boy’s buttocks, pulling them apart so he could push his fingers in more easily. Spencer jerked so violently, he smacked his head against the arm-rest, biting his knuckles to hold back the whimpering.

His legs were pushed up even further as the blond head leaned up next to his ear, fingers still twisting and teasing inside his body. He whispered something that sounded faintly like _tell Daddy you like it._

Spencer was quiet, except for his hitching moans and the thick digits jabbed in savagely, making him let out a short little sob. He whispered through the strings of sweaty hair over his face, what sounded like _uh...I...I like it?_

“Nooooo,” the man grinned. “Say it properly.”

The boy was confused for about a second or two, before he flushed furiously, turning his head away with embarrassment. 

“Uh...I...” he swallowed roughly and then cringed, his voice small and mortified. “I...uh...I like it...D-Daddy?”

A shiver ran through the man’s body before he started fingering him even harder, pressing sloppy wet kisses and licks over his neck and face. He looked like some kind’ve starving dog. 

“Pl...play with your nipples,” he gasped, slathering his tongue over one of the soft pink nubs until it was shiny with spit. Spencer obeyed and his toes started curling as the silky skin pebbled and peaked under his fingers. 

“Go-good...good...” he reached down into the bag again, rummaged around and pulled out  something, exhaling hard as he slopped lube over it. He got up onto the couch and knelt between the boy’s legs, pushing him up into a half-sitting, half-lying position on the arm-rest. He poured more of the liquid onto a long, thick ridged toy made out of clear plastic, edging the foal-like legs further apart. Spencer stared with wide eyes as the man took a firm hold of his thigh, teasing his entrance with the bulbous tip.

“Feel nice?” his voice was barely above a whisper, staring intently into his face. Spencer looked like a deer in the headlights, staring shyly into the man’s burning gaze. His breath sucked in with a gasp as the hard tip pushed in. Everything tensed up again and he let out a small mewl as the toy fought against his resisting muscles. The man pinched his thigh and with another pained gasp, the toy eased in a slick inch. The boy’s knees clenched together and his huge doe eyes glistened with pain as he stared down at the clear plastic pushing inside of his body. 

“Hurts?” the man breathed as he wiggled the toy gently around, letting it slide in a little further. The boy’s eyes flicked up, fingers in his mouth and he made a tiny whimpering noise. 

“Daddy kiss it better?”

“N-no...please...” 

He teased the toy in as far as it would go and Spencer’s hips shivered with the exquisite pain. The man took his fingers away and the plastic quivered before being slowly pushed out with a wet pop. Breath shuddering, he eased it back in again and the pressure on the kid’s prostate made his eyes go huge and damp. He took his fingers away again and Spencer let out a moan as his muscles smoothly expelled the slicked-up toy from his body. 

“Little kitten’s so hard...” the man was fisting his own cock in short desperate movements, as he lined up the head of the toy with the teenager’s entrance again, sliding in. “Look at how much you love it...dirty, dirty boy...”

Spencer panted, heavily lidded eyes fixed on the dripping plastic sticking out between his thighs. He closed his eyes, stomach muscles rolling as it slid achingly out into the man’s hand. A few beads of sweat slowly streaked down the man’s flabby sallow-skinned body as he pressed the boy’s chest down so he was flat on his back, legs up in the air. 

He slid the toy all the way down to the hilt and jiggled it around, pressing the pad of his thumb against the base. Spencer had his eyes clenched shut, gasping as the man pressed in as hard as possible, before taking his hand away and letting it push up and out of his body. Then he angled it, sliding down painfully and the boy cried out. As the man slowly pulled the toy out again, he made sure to do it on an upwards angle that savagely stretched the teenager’s entrance out, making him writhe beneath him. 

As Spencer propped his head to the side, drenched in sweat and heaving for breath, the man propped his socked feet up until they rested on his shoulders, bending down to get something out of the black plastic bag again. He worked quickly, ripping open a condom packet and rolling it onto his swollen erection, slicking it with lube. He took a firm hold of the boy’s leg, resting one over the back of the couch before he pressed the blunt leaking head inside his trembling body.

“Fu...ohh...oh...fuck” his head leaned back with pleasure as the boy’s mouth stretched open in a silent agonized cry. His gawky legs shook before the man pried them a little further apart, sinking in inch after throbbing inch. He wheezed a little for breath, before slipping out until only the purple tip of his cock was inside the boy’s entrance. 

He pushed his thumb over his engorged glossy flesh and pushed in a few inches. His thumb slid over himself as he prodded in and out of the boy in short, shallow thrusts, grunting at the clenching walls of muscle around his cock. Streaks of clear liquid oozed down the backs of Spencer’s thighs and down over his belly as he shuddered through the intense feelings wracking through his thin, shaking body. 

“You love being filled up with cum don’t you?” the man hissed, sliding down hot and tight all at once between the squirming boy’s legs. “Does little baby love being Daddy’s fucktoy?”

Spencer let out a strangled sob, panting open-mouthed as the man ground his hips down and flicked a thumb over the boy’s own red-tipped erection, making him squirm and cry out. Not liking the position, he pushed the boy’s long legs down, breath wrought with pleasure and shifted him around onto his knees. He propped his bottom up higher with a cushion underneath him and lined the head of his cock with his come-slicked entrance again. 

He slid back easily inside him, angling and hitting something that made the boy clench at the arm-rest and his eyes roll back. The man started thrusting inside of him brutally and bruises bloomed out from under his tight grip at Spencer’s hips. Each wet smack against the boy’s thighs sent his floppy-haired head smacking violently against the arm-rest and his body shook under the harsh, unrelenting thrusts. 

“U-u-uh...” Spencer’s agonized whimpers were muffled by the couch and the unstopping piston movements of the grunting man’s hips. “U-u-uh-uh...p-p-please...p-please...y-y-you’re h-h- _hurting_ m-me...”

“You gonna cry sweet boy?” 

His distended cock rammed in and out of his insides, but he started to lesson up when he felt the sobbing tremors run uncontrollably through the smaller body underneath him. The boy turned his face around from the cushion, his eyes half-shut and his face a red mess of sweat, bubbling tears, drool and mucus, strands of hair stuck in his mouth. The man’s sweating pot belly surged and rippled with each long, merciless thrust, wheezing and heaving for breath. He looked like a bloated sweating pig. 

He took the boy’s hand and pressed it down against his buttocks so he could feel the thick wet cock moving inside of him. Spencer thrashed and writhed and the man grabbed his thin wrist again and pushed it into his lower belly so he could feel the rich, plunging movements stretching in and out against his flesh. 

“You _love_ being fucked by cock, _beautiful_ boy, you were _made_ to be fucked, you _love_ havin’ your tight little ass ripped open, you _love_ being my fucktoy don’t you, gorgeous, _gorgeous_ boy...?”

He slid his fingers inside the kid’s mouth, picking up the speed of his thrusts again, slanting slightly and leaning his fat belly over the curve of the boy’s back until he was at an entire new vicious angle. Spencer retched at the thick digits down his throat and the thicker organ slapping moistly at his buttocks, clenching his eyes shut, panting for breath.

The man was making guttural sounds, slurring every dirty phrase and skeevy pet-name he could think of through his fat, fish-like lips. His eyes were rolling back in his sweat-sodden face as he started rocking in and out harder then ever. His movements were getting sloppy and uncoordinated as he jammed his spit-slicked fingers violently in and out of the boy’s plush red lips. 

“Fuck...my little baby boy...fuckfuckfuck....” he pulled out all at once and flipped the boy over onto his back, bending his long legs up against his chest. Spencer’s eyes were bleary and unfocused as the man started roughly kneading himself and then pushing at the boy’s erection hard against his belly. 

Then he picked up the clear plastic toy from the ground again, pumping his purpling cock furiously before he slipped it back down the boy’s abused, swollen channel. He pushed it down to the hilt and it went much more easily then the first time. He held it there for a second before taking his fingers away and letting it slide out with a soggy pop. It was covered with streaks of lube and come and something dark red which made Spencer’s breath catch a little with panic. 

The man ignored him, eyes falling closed, his panting growing out of control as violent tremors ran through his slick, shining body. He quickly peeled the condom off, tying the knot with fumbling fingers.

“Fuckfuck _fuck...”_  

He pointed his cock at the boy’s face, pushing the toy back in viciously at the same time, making the kid writhe with agony. The man eyelids fell shut and his mouth opened in pleasure as he gave his throbbing erection a final squeeze. 

“Put out your tongue,” he demanded roughly, twisting the toy in so hard the boy’s eyes rolled up and spit trickled from his mouth.

Spencer clenched his eyes shut as the hot jets of semen spewed out over his lips and down his chin. It slid in thin stripes down his red tongue and the last spurt dribbled down his eyelid and over his cheek. He clenched his come-streaked lips together, mouth pulling down and he was shaking so badly it looked like he was going to burst into tears. 

With a swipe of the man’s thumb over the head of his own erection, his entire body was wracked with uncontrollable shivers and his stomach was sucking in on itself. The plastic toy plopping out of him, made him start panting desperately, toes curling at the cushions. His back arched up off tthe couch and his eyelids fluttered before he bit into his lip and came all down his chest. 

They were both heaving and panting as the man slid down heavily over the boy’s shuddering body, fat stomach pressing down onto his skinny frame. Gasping for oxygen, the man kissed the boy’s neck and licked the come from his face. He flicked his fat tongue into Spencer’s red mouth so he could taste it too, before gathering up the sticky residue on his fingers and sliding it between the boy’s plump lips. 

Spencer looked half-dead as he lay on the couch, eyes drooping, the thick fingers popping in and out of his drool-soaked lips. The man slid down to his legs, crooking a curious finger inside his throbbing channel, eliciting a tiny mewl of agony. The finger came back out dark with blood and the man bent down to press his lips gently to the quickly shrinking hole. 

“We’ll get you cleaned up,” he whispered, stroking the inside his thigh in a soft, soothing way, kissing and flicking his tongue at the tender scarlet flesh. “And you can have a little nap in the bed out back okay?”

Spencer covered up his face with his long fingers again. His chest starting heaving up and down with silent, body-shaking sobs. The man slowly rubbed his stomach, kissing it, leaving wet patches of saliva behind. Spencer’s legs curled up into his body as he shook even harder.

“Daddy look after you?” the man whispered moving up to pry his fingers from his face, pressing his rubbery lips to the kid’s forehead, stroking his hair. The boy whimpered and tried helplessly to squirm away, his muscles all loose and useless.

“ _Y-yes Daddy_.”

The thick fingers curled around the soft brown locks of hair.

“Tell your Daddy you love him.”

“ _I love you Daddy._ ”

The man smiled, eyes hungry and twisting, lips curving up in dark and wolfish way as he brushed the boy’s thick floppy hair back, planting another wet kiss on his forehead.

“There’s my beautiful little boy,” he whispered, nuzzling into his cheek, stroking at the soft silky skin of his neck.

Spencer eyes were closed, tiny excruciating breaths escaping his lips as the man kissed his delicate eyelids and rubbed slowly at his belly, before the camera finally flickered to black. 

On the bed back in the present, horrified tears were pouring down Penelope’s cheeks in thick, bubbling streams, the stuffed animal soggy in her vice-tight grip. As she stared at the black screen, her breathing got all short and uncontrolled and her vision went blurry.

He was still there with him, he was still there and now he was gone, now he was there alone with him, what else had happened during the cleaning up, what had happened on the bed, had he been hurt even more, had he hurt him again, she needed - she _needed_ to be there with him to make sure he was okay, he was too young, too thin, too _scared_.

The fear took a hold of her as she sobbed into the sodden fur of the little stuffed animal. What had the man done to him after the camera stopped rolling? Why wasn’t there anyone there to help him? She needed to protect him. Needed to, needed to, needed to, why hadn’t she been able to protect him, why hadn’t anyone been there, she needed him here wrapped up with hot cocoa and hugs until he was okay again, he’d been so badly hurt and she didn’t do anything, she couldn’t do anything.

Then the fear exploded into fury and repulsion. 

How dare they?

How _dare_ they?

He’d just been a boy.

A _kid._

He was _scared._

They were _hurting_ him.

What if...what if she’d had to do that? What if that had been her on the couch? She’d have murdered the fat, greasy bastard...

...but what if she’d been a nineteen year old girl? 

Had all the young kids in the videos on that man’s site been as terrified as Spencer? 

Her stomach sunk all the way down to the pit of her stomach. She felt her skin start to prickle uncontrollably.

Maybe some had been better at hiding it. 

She slowly shut the computer and curled up in a ball, fresh tears pouring down her cheeks, mixing with the trails of mucus from her nose as her stomach rolled with disgust. She needed him to be safe, she _needed_ him to be safe, he was her friend and how many times had it happened again, how many times did that man _touch_ him, how many times did other men hurt him, he’d been a kid, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t _fair_.

She could easily track the filthy sleaze down...she could easily find out if Spencer had suffered through anymore videos. But she couldn’t right now. Not tonight. She felt sick...so _sick_. She needed to vomit. She needed to cry.

She needed Spencer safe here with her, where no-one else could hurt him ever again.

 

* * *

 

“Hey baby-girl, you’re looking especially fine this morning...”

“...hey Morgan...”

The sparkling white grin faded instantly as the woman walked into the bull-pen, three coffee cups stacked on top of the other, looking pale and washed out. She made a bee-line towards a desk where a young man was making small-talk with Prentiss a desk away, shuffling through some folders. He looked around confusedly as Garcia stood before him, coffee stacked up in her hands. 

“Hi Garcia,” he said, a little uncertainly as Morgan watched concernedly from a distance. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah,” Prentiss added, peering up at her through her black fringe. “You don’t look like you’ve slept at _all_.”

“I’m fine,” she said, the usual exuberance in her voice dimmed at an alarming rate. She rubbed at her eye blearily and blinked up at them. “Spencey?”

The young man stared at her with his big doe-like eyes. He wasn’t as thin and gangling anymore. He’d grown into himself and his face wasn’t so smooth and frightened, eyes more thoughtful, faint feathery stubble over his cheeks and chin. He wasn’t a nineteen year old that she needed to coddle and protect. He was an adult. She swallowed roughly and her co-workers looked more worried then ever. 

“Um...I just...I got you a coffee...your favorite one with all the cream and sprinkles and sugar and caramel shots and you can drink it and be warm and happy which will be awesome and take it, please." 

Reid obeyed, taking the cup and smiling at her, still looking completely bemused. She felt her throat tighten up again. She wasn’t going to tell him what she saw. What if it’d been _her_ in that video when she was only a kid and one of her friend found out about it? She’d be completely mortified. She didn’t want to humiliate him.

She didn’t want to take him back there...

It was in the past wasn’t it? He was living his own life now, wasn’t he? Hadn’t he moved on? Wasn’t he alright now? Wasn’t he?

Her glasses fogged up and she whispered in a croaky voice; “Reid? Can...can I have a hug?”

He blinked at her and swallowed a little, arms shrinking into his body for a brief second. Then he unwound himself again and smiled a bit uncertainly. 

“U-uh...sure...sure of...of course?”

He stepped forward stiffly and nearly dropped his coffee when she crushed him into a bear-hug, hitting him with waves of beads, shawls and perfume. He was still so skinny...all his elbows and ribs stuck into her painfully and he smelt a bit dusty, like a second-hand clothes shop or an old library. She squeezed him a little harder

“Ow,” he said and she could sense the befuddled grin in his voice as he uncertainly rested his sharp chin on her shoulder. She fought the urge to stroke his hair and whisper about how everything was going to be alright. He wasn’t a child anymore. 

“Reid? I love you,” she said softly, so the others wouldn’t hear. He shifted a bit in her tight embrace, patting her awkwardly on the back.

“Um...I love you too,” he replied as they rocked a little from side to side, definitely looking completely ridiculous swaying together in the middle of the bullpen. “I think you’ve broken my ribs though.”

“I - I’ll always be there...I’ll never let you get h-hurt...” she was in serious danger of losing the plot right there and bawling in front of everyone, but she didn’t want to let him go, didn’t want anything to hurt him ever ever again. 

“I know Garcia,” he said and his voice was completely bemused as though this was an obvious fact to him, that he was surprised she didn’t know. She sniffled wetly and took a step back, rubbing at her eyes. He sent her a small, shy smile obviously worried that she was upset and wanting to make her feel better in the only way he knew how.

“I love you Spencey,” she said again and he scratched a little nervously at the back of his neck, cracking a grin.

“Me too. Uh...thanks for the coffee,” he twisted his fingers together, as she took off her glasses and cleaned them with one of her multi-colored shawls. She leant up on her tip-toes on planted a big red lipsticked kiss on his cheek with a wet smack. He rubbed at it it, grinning wider.

“I don’t have cooties,” she smiled weakly at him and he fumbled around a bit, taking a little sip of his coffee. 

“Um...I’ve got...paperwork and stuff...”

“Okay,” she said as he went back to his desk. “I love you.”

“I got that,” he quipped back and still holding back the little sniffles, she turned around again, leaving behind a completely baffled Prentiss and walking over towards an equally as flabbergasted Morgan.

“You wanna tell me what that was all about?” he said concernedly as he took her coffees for her, putting a hand on her shoulder as they walked back down the corridor. She leaned her blond head against his side and he put his arm around her comfortingly. 

“I’m good...just one of my usual emotional moments. I need some loving from my Chocolate God of Sensuality to make me happy again.”

“Anything for you, Mama,” his forehead was still furrowed with confusion, the usual teasing lilt absent from his voice.

“Don’t worry about it,” she told him, smiling at him and taking the coffees as they reached her darkly-lit lair. “Everything’s gonna be fine.”

God, if _Morgan_ knew...

She gave her head a little shake. Morgan would never know. 

“If you say so,” he said, still looking unsure as she retreated into the darkness. “You can always talk to me whenever you want to.”

“I know,” she called lightly over her shoulder as the door fell closed behind her. On her seat, she took off her glasses and massaged the bridge of her nose. She took a few big gulps of coffee and exhaled hard.

No-one would ever know but her. It’d be her heavily guarded secret. 

She’d find a way to bury the video down, down, down where no-one would ever be able to see it, not even her. She couldn’t delete it of course...once a clip is out there...

But she’ll make sure no-one ever saw it again. 

She’d find a way to shut that whole fucking site down.

Spam it with viruses.

Bury as many videos as she could.

In a strange way, doing that was like protecting the young, terrified boy from all those years ago.

Protecting him in the only way she knew how.

But fuck it. It didn’t matter how many years late she was. She was going to do it anyway.

And no-one was ever going to know about it, as long as she lived. She’d take the contents of that video down to her grave.


	2. Reynolds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want to visualise what this OC looks like, I have a image of my idea of what he'd look like - it's very small and blurry sorry.
> 
> http://i.imgur.com/rvu8h8C.png

“Good afternoon ma’am,” the man said politely, sidling up next to the frumpy, middle-aged woman who was searching through rows of ratty old books. “Is there anything in particular you’re looking for?”

The woman smiled graciously at him, tapping at her peach-fuzz chin with concentration. 

“Yes...uh...thanks, I was just trying to get some of my son’s school-books second-hand...they get so expensive, y’see...”

“Of course, of course,” the overweight man nodded in sympathy. “What kind of books does he need?” 

“Oh...um...” her eyes glazed over for a second as she rubbed at her forehead. “Oh I’ve gone completely blank. Uh...wait, I’ll go ask him now, he’s right over there.”

She waddled off and the man’s sunken eyes flickered over across the shop, where a tall, tanned curly-haired teenager was looking at a rows of old lamps. He wore square-rimmed glasses and his eyes were huge and green as he turned to his mother with an impatient little frown on his face. The man swallowed and looked away again.

When he had a handle on himself, he turned back around to see the woman and her son talking to another employee, a new girl who every customer took a shine to, with her bubbly personality and wide smile. Soon she had the mother and son under her spell, sweeping them away into another section of the store. He swallowed again and started rearranging the paperbacks, feeling the familiar hot burning feeling begin to rise through his body.

The new girl looked around school-aged. She was definitely attractive with her sleek, dark hair, beaming smile and shining eyes. The woman’s son would be very taken with her, just like any other boy his age would be. He wondered how old he was; eighteen? Nineteen? 

He remembered one of his boys from years ago, who’d been a little older and had similar curly hair. In the man’s mind, he had him nicknamed as Squirmer, because of how much he had writhed and thrashed underneath him. Squirmer was number three in his top ten favorites.  

Going through his top ten always calmed him down and kept his anger in check. 

At number five was Giggle, the small, sharp-faced twink with dyed red and purple hair and black-rimmed eyes. He’d tittered like a twelve year old throughout the entire encounter, even though he looked like he was in his mid-twenties. In retrospect, he might’ve been putting that on to try and look cute, but hey, it worked. His was one of the most popular videos on the site.

Number four was Tough Guy. He’d had tattoos on his arms and was on the short and stocky side. He’d come in wearing a backwards cap and a sneer on his lips, using as much filthy language as humanely possible. He’d participated very viciously in the video’s proceedings, but when the camera stopped rolling, his eyes had gone watery for a second and his mouth had turned down, before he got everything together and stormed out again. 

Muso was number two, a contemptuous guy who’d been older then most, looking like he was in his thirties. He’d had a swagger on him, a few piercings and a Modest Mouse t-shirt which he’d paired with black skinny jeans. He was particularly good at giving head, which was why was he was so high on the list. Like Tough Guy, he’d tried to act like none of the video had bothered him, but afterwards he’d seen him sitting in his car, smoking cigarette after cigarette and scratching madly at his skin like he wanted to peel it all off.

His mind drifted over to number one. Kitten who was so named because he looked like the youngest he’d ever had with his shy Bambi eyes and soft smooth skin. He was always in the top five, drifting upwards and downwards in rank depending on how sadistic he felt that day. Sometimes he felt a tad guilty about how much the poor kid had cried and bled, but on a bad day when he had particularly rude customers or someone had pushed him around one too many times, his mind would wander over to that moment years and years ago when he’d had complete domination over somebody else. 

He licked his lips and breathed in hard. His mind was settled and sedated now, a calmly breathing beast. He pressed down at his button-down shirt, pushed his hair back and straightened the row of books one last time, before sauntering off again. There was a slight strut in his walk, like he was a proud rooster amongst the henhouse.

“Oh for Goodness sake,” he heard the familiar annoyed shrill from behind him. He turned to see the little ball of frustration hurtling his way, like a meteor on collision course towards earth. He forced himself to look blank and unassuming as his tiny superior glared up at him through her thick-rimmed glasses. 

“Look Reynolds, you’ve just spent a minute rearranging the books all wrong! I saw about five out of order, so can you go back and arrange them properly if that’s not too difficult?”

A thousand furious phrases were screaming through his head as she barreled off again and he turned back towards the row of books. That bitch was PMSing twenty-four fucking seven. Bitch probably bossed her whipped husband around too, had him castrated like a dog in the backyard. Bitch wouldn’t have a husband, she was an ugly short fuck with a face like the contents of his toilet bowl. 

He breathed in and out again, slow and steady. He thought of the curly-haired teen across the store and what he might look like spread out on the sheets before him, panting for breath, begging for more. But that didn’t even help, because that new slut kept crawling into his head and the boy’s green eyes would sweep over to her, grinning with appreciation, leaving him forgotten. 

Fake, vapid little bimbo. 

Midget Napoleonite, thought she was fucking better then him. 

Fuck them... _fuck_ them...

“Excuse me,” his sullen thoughts were interrupted as he looked over at a young African-American girl, chewing gum behind him. 

“I was wondering if you could show me where the shoe section was?”

He forced his face into a pleasant grin, eyes disappearing away into the folds of his skin. 

“Just follow me,” he said, taking petty satisfaction in leaving the books unsorted. Leading the way through the shop, he passed the new bitch talking to the curly-haired boy, his mother dawdling somewhere else in the store. 

“Hey,” he barked at the girl, who turned around, smoothing her fringe back. “There’s books that need rearranging over there, so get at it.”

“Right away sir!” she grinned back at him, bouncing off, leaving the tall teenager looking despondently after her. The man allowed himself a self-satisfied smirk as he stalked back off again, his gum-munching customer by his side. 

Small victories were one of the few pleasures he enjoyed throughout his monotonous existence. It helped the fire behind his eyes cool down again.

 

* * *

 

Half an hour later, he took his lunch break, craving a good, greasy sandwich to clog up his arteries with. He went into a small, funky little place off the main street and after placing his order, sat down by the window. He had a habit of people watching and he often passed the time by making quick-second judgements on what the various individuals might be like.

The guy on the other side of the street with the long dark hair and a limp. Maybe he’d got drunk and been in a car-accident, because his girlfriend cheated on him and took all his money.

A pair of women dressed in skinny jeans and punk t-shirts with nose-piercings and colored hair. Maybe they’d been friends since high-school and were in a secret lesbian affair together.

A heavily built man in a suit, with crow’s feet around his tired grey eyes. Maybe he was coming back from a funeral for some random person he barely knew and felt bad for not getting to know them better.

That big curvy, blonde woman over by the counter with the red-rimmed glasses and polka dot dress. Maybe she was a florist and was running short on a certain color of roses and needed them restocked. 

“Harry!” one of the servers called and he got up from his table. As he walked over, the possible florist’s eyes glanced over at him, before flicking away again. As he took his coffee and wrapped up sandwich, her head snapped around all at once, staring at him with wide, shocked eyes. 

When he was back at his seat, he looked at her from out the corner of his eye, wondering if they somehow knew each other. She didn’t look familiar at all, but she was gazing at him with such intensity now, it was somewhat unnerving.

He felt her burning eyes on him as she took a seat at the other end of the café. He glanced up and sent her an awkward, thin-lipped smile - her face darkened like thunder in response. He felt a stab of confusion at this stranger’s hostility and looked back down again into his coffee cup. 

Anger immediately began bubbling deep down in his body like boiling water. Couldn’t he even eat his lunch in peace without someone treating him like shit? What had he ever done to her anyway? He didn’t even know this fucking crazy bitch. 

He tried to keep his breathing under control, taking a huge bite of his sandwich, wiping at the mayo collecting at the corners of his mouth. 

“Penny!” someone at the counter yelled out, as he rubbed his greasy fingers off on his pants. When he looked up again, the woman was getting her coffee and fumbling for her phone, propping it under her ear. She nodded a few times, said something shortly and then shoved it away, hurrying for the door. 

Her eyes swept over him as she walked out and her face did something funny, curling up in a mixture of fury and repulsion. He stared after her and his indignation reached a breaking point all at once. First the new girl had flounced in and taken away his customer, then his fucking boss had made him look like an idiot and now _this_. Some stranger giving him filthy looks for no good fucking reason. Who the hell did she think she was?

As she clicked on down the street, he jumped to his feet, sandwich in hand, storming for the door. He saw her curly blonde head bobbing down the sidewalk and he quickly stalked up behind her. When he caught up to her brisk walk, he put a heavy hand on her shoulder, forcing her around to face him.

“‘Scuse me, do you have some kind’ve problem or something...?” he snarled but she wrenched herself away from him violently, looking as though he’d pissed on her shoe.

“Don’t touch me pervert!” she screeched and then something hot and wet exploded over his face and down his shirt. He gasped with shock, looking down at his coffee stained shirt as she whipped around a corner. 

He found himself rushing after her, watching the blonde head disappear down the busy, bustling street. His crushed the soggy remains of his sandwich in his fist and the white-hot rage blurred his vision. The coffee was running down into his pants, down his leg and dripping wet and lukewarm off the end of his nose.

“ _Fucking fat-ass whore!”_ he yelled at the top of his lungs after her, but she didn’t even look around, dissolving away into the crowds of pedestrians. He stared down at his feet, breathing heavily through his nose like an enraged bull, heart pounding madly in his chest. 

He’d slit her throat, he’d shit down her neck, he’d light her on fucking fire and watch her fucking burn alive. Fuck her, fuck her to hell, fuck her to death. He hoped she got kidnapped and raped until she died, fucking whore-bitch-slut-fucking-piece-of-fat-fucking...

As the violent images flashed before his eyes, he clambered uselessly around for the cigarettes in his pockets. Once he’d lit up and inhaled the smoke deep inside his lungs, he felt his knotted up muscles start to unwind. He leaned against a lamp-post, puffing away, eyes falling closed. 

His mind was a blank, white space for a good long couple of minutes, before he managed to mold his temper down into a tiny ball, deep down inside himself once more. He flicked the cigarette butt away and started making his way back down the street again, throwing his ruined sandwich into a nearby bin as he did so.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the day passed in an uninteresting blur. He’d been berated for his stained shirt but his mind was elsewhere, firmly fixed on finding an explanation for the woman’s behavior. He’d been called a pervert, a sleaze and a creep plenty of times before in his life. He’d come to expect it, what with his...hobby and all. 

The only explanation he could find, was that the woman had seen a relative in one of his videos. Well it was her fault for looking up gay porn in the first place. No-one had typed it into the search engine for her. 

If _he’d_ found a family member in a porn video online, would _he_ had been as angry?

Probably not. It was the person’s choice to be in a video after all. No one was forcing them to do it. It wasn’t like he found guys off the street and dragged them away to his fuck dungeon for Christ’s sake. Half those boys found out how to contact him themselves and the other half were recommended to him through...other people with...similar hobbies. The boy involved had to agree to arranging a meeting anyway. If they said no, it wasn’t like he could reach into the internet and rape them through the screen. 

The self righteous bitch needed to get the fuck over herself.

On his way back home, he picked up some KFC and when he staggered tiredly into his cramped apartment, he opened up iTunes to get himself calm. The greasy comfort food and the familiar strings of Alice In Chains made him feel still and placid, the growling, snapping beast in his head settling down to rest for the night. 

Wiping his fingers on his grubby couch, he reached for his phone, the music pulsing pleasantly in his ears. He tapped in a number and waited for somebody to pick up.

“Hello?” 

His heart sank immediately at the sharp voice. This wasn’t the person he wanted to talk to.

“Uhh...is Rudy there? This is his number...so...I don’t why someone else’s picked up...”

“Oh fucking hell, is that you Harry?” the woman snarled immediately down the other line. “Rudy don’t want nothing to do with you, when are you gonna fucking understan’...?” 

“Oh go fuck yourself Cindy,” he snapped back, the animal inside him rearing up all at once, gnashing its teeth. “Where’s Rudy?”

“He _don’t_ wanna see you. Why don’t you leave the kid alone?”

He wished he could strangle her to death and watch her eyes pop out of her skull...

“You don’t know nothing about him and me...”

“You really _are_ the biggest piece of shit, you know that?” the woman sneered at him and he felt like ripping something open so he could watch it bleed out in front of him. He took several breaths in and tried to think of a scathing retort, his brain offering him nothing. 

“You’re just a...bitch...” he breathed, eyes clenching shut at how pitiful it sounded. Cindy laughed out loud in his ear.

“Yeah okay, why don’t you ring me again when you’re not acting like a thirteen year old?” she scoffed, before she abruptly hung up again, leaving the man fuming at the end of the line. 

He resisted the urge to chuck the phone across the room. He wouldn’t be able to afford a new one. Instead, he walked into his kitchen and grabbed a bag of Doritos from his cupboard and a can of coke from the fridge. He scoffed it all down on the couch, turning his iTunes up even higher until the music was ringing painfully against his eardrums.

His cell-phone bleeped and he picked it up with a grimace, wiping his cheese-powdered lips at the back of his hand. 

“Harry?” the weary voice at the end of the line murmured and the thought of his smooth skin and dark messy hair flashed through his mind, making something funny happen in his chest.

“Baby...” he tried to say and there was a short huff of air from the other end of the line. He imagined the line of pimples on his cheek and his crooked teeth and his dark, serious eyes and...

“Don’t call me that. I don’t want you ringin’ me anymore, okay?”

“Huh? What the fuck you talking bout?”

“I told you, I don’t want to see you, it’s not that hard to understan’...”

He felt like the walls were closing in on him, crushing him up into a ball. His throat constricted and he suddenly couldn't breathe, his heart plunging down lower and lower in his chest.

“I just talked to you last week and you were fucking fine!” he hissed furiously into the phone. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“Look...” Rudy sighed with exasperation. “You know...you know wot’s wrong...I’ve tol’ you a million times I don’t wanna be in your goddamn videos and...”

“Jesus Christ, you don’t have to be in them if you don’t want to...what the fuck’s that bitch been telling you, you don’t even know what you’re goddamn saying...”

“Don’t talk about my sister like that!” Rudy jumped to Cindy’s defense at once. “And I’m an adult Harry, even if you treat me like I’m a kid. I know exactly what I’m saying and I’m saying I want you to stop callin’ me.”

“Look,” the man pleaded, his voice losing it’s hostile edge. “I never meant to hit you...you’re - you’re my boy...”

There was a tense, uncomfortable pause.

When he spoke again, Rudy’s voice was slightly repulsed, like he had bugs crawling under his skin at the other man’s words; 

“I have to go. Please don’t ring me again.”

The man stared up at the ceiling, swallowing hard as the line was disconnected. He put his phone down and closed his eyes. Fury snapped through him all at once and he lashed out hard at his tiny coffee-table, a stab of pain shooting through him. Then the utter hopelessness kicked in and he felt everything go numb and tingly, not quite believing this pile of shit was his life.

He moved mindlessly over towards the doorway and through to his bedroom. He lay flat on his back and got his cigarettes out, sliding one between his rubbery lips and lighting up. The nicotine was sharp and soothing in his shaking body. 

He knew why people treated him like this. It would be so different if he was a handsome, successful forty-nine year old with an interest in younger men. Because he was over-weight and sallow-skinned, people found him revolting. If he was good-looking, no-one would give a shit about who he found attractive and what he liked to do in the bedroom. 

In people’s minds, an ugly person wasn’t allowed to have a sex life, an ugly person wasn’t allowed to be attracted to anybody else or heavens above, they’re precious digestive systems wouldn't be able to handle such a nauseous affair! For fuck's sake...

If he was handsome and successful...if he wasn’t a fat-ass with his nicotine-stained teeth and sunken eyes, jumping between shitty jobs...

The whole world was so shallow and vain and conceited. 

Idiots. Assholes. Stupid fucking imbeciles. 

He had never felt so completely and utterly powerless in his entire pathetic existence. He hated this. Why did the whole world insist on making his life a misery?

He let out a short, pained sigh, sending his hand over his face.

There was one thing that always helped when was feeling this small and insignificant. 

Whenever he was feeling pissed off and useless, there was one boy that crept shyly into his mind to make him feel better. He had a different boy for his different moods and Kitten was assigned firmly for these kind’ve nights, after these kind’ve days. 

He imagined him, doe-eyed with his soft, brown hair over his face, sitting nervously at the end of the bed, looking down at his hands in his lap. His imagination changed truths and conveniently left things out about what the kid had been like in real life. In his mind, there were no tired bags under his eyes and there wasn’t that utterly terrified look on his face. He wasn’t so bony and skinny either...his imagination made him smoother and fuller, with poutier lips and silkier hair. The scared look in his larger, darker eyes was sweet and submissive, not panicking and repulsed like it had really been all those years ago. 

“What’s wrong baby?” he’d whisper and the boy would bite so prettily at his full lips, looking up at him from under his eyelashes. So shy. So vulnerable. Beautiful, beautiful boy. 

“Uh...uh...I f-feel...I f-feel...” he mewled in a tiny voice, a voice that over the years had become much more childish and cute then it had ever been in reality. “I feel funny in m-my...in my tummy Daddy.”

In his mind, he’d move slowly over towards him, down to the end of the bed, until he could breathe in the sweet scent of his hair - although he’d actually smelt musty, like old books and second-hand clothes in real life. He slid his heavy hand underneath his t-shirt - because tonight Baby Boy was wearing one of the man’s baggy grey shirts, which made him look even younger then ever - and he felt his hot, heated skin, warming up and trembling. How he’d loved the way his stomach muscles had quivered nervously beneath his touch, how his big, innocent eyes had swam and glistened, those plump lips damp with spit.  

“Do you feel all tingly, sweetheart?” he asked him gently and his fingers would move down between his legs - tonight baby boy was wearing a cute little green thong that he’d once filmed a twink in years ago - and he felt the moistness of his pubic hair, felt his silky hardness straining into his hand. His kitten squirmed and squeaked, clamping the man’s hand in between his soft thighs - although in real life they’d been skinny and covered with faint, wiry hair. His baby boy in his fantasies had no body hair to speak of, except for the soft thatch of pubic hair that he had loved stroking and playing with. 

“Do you feel funny here? Tell Daddy...” he breathed into his ear, loving the contrast between slick skin and damp cotton beneath his fingers. Now little kitten was all red and embarrassed, covering up his face and peeking out at him through his fingers. 

“I w-was...I w-was...thinking about b-bad things and it went all...went all hard on my tummy...and I touched it and it felt nice and...oh...” the man kissed his neck, pressing his lips against his fluttering pulse point, sliding his hand into the fabric, kneading him until his big eyes fluttered shut and his red lips pursed with pained pleasure. 

“Sir?” he whimpered. “My tummy hurts...”

“Tell Daddy what you were thinking of,” he hissed against his flushing skin, rubbing him even harder until he was mewling and wriggling against him. He wrapped one arm around his back, pulling him in close and the boy hid his face away into his shoulder.

“Uh...uh...” he panted into the crook of the man’s neck and he ran a hand up and down the curve of his spine, slowly rubbing between his legs.

“Th-that I was....was...I was bad...for being-being dirty and wearing a th-thong and-and t-touching myself...and I needed to be...needed to be punished...”

“You were a bad, bad little boy,” he hissed and his baby started to tremble. “What were you thinking of when you played with your pretty pink cock? Thinking of me plunging in and out of your tight little asshole until you cried?”

His brown eyes were liquid and fully blown, lips full and slicked red, panting shallowly for breath.

“ _Yesyesyes_...” he gasped, hips rocking up and down into the man’s hand. “I like your cock...it hurts so much...”

“You love being stretched open by me, don’t you?”

He nodded, giggling and squirming, skin glowing red. 

“I like it Daddy...”

“You like me pumping inside of you, filling you up with come?”

“Please...please sir...”

“You love how far I have to spread your legs...”

“Daddy...Daddy...uh...uh...D-Daddy...”

“...how big and fat my cock is for you, how much it hurts, how huge and hard it is?”

“Oh...oh...y-yes...Daddy...”

And that’s when his baby boy would offer himself up to him, spread out on the mattress, bottom up in the air, the green fabric of his thong riding up between his creamy, perfectly soft cheeks. He’d look up at him, blinking his eyes shyly, his fingers in his mouth as his hips rocked up and down against the mattress, trying to gain friction against the faded sheets. Reach around and push the fabric of his thong to the side, see his cock spring free and bounce to his belly, swollen and dripping with pre-come.

If he smacked that perfect ass, his cheeks would quiver and redden and he’d keep on spanking his little bottom until he was sobbing into the pillow, rocking uncontrollably up and down despite himself.

Tug the fabric out between his ass, see his fluttering pink hole clenching and unclenching before his eyes, such a perfect little entrance, tight and moist with his baby’s slick secretions. Plunge his thick fingers in and out of him, feeling his muscles squeeze around him, vice tight as his little kitten cried and bucked into the sheets, oh God he looked so good, he had complete control over him, he was so sweet and young and perfect, oh God it was too much already and he couldn’t, he couldn’t, he...

The man threw his head back, crashing back to reality, clenching his eyes shut and spurting hot come all over his fist. He fell back, completely spent and boneless. He loved his boys. He loved them all so much. 

The world was calm and still around him for a blissfully long moment. Then finally, his brain started slowly kicking into gear again.

He always forbade himself from remembering the uncontrollable crying from the closed bathroom all those years ago and the hand-towel spotted with dark red blood he’d found a day later. He’d convinced himself that the boy had loved it, had convinced himself all his boys had loved it.

In a sharp, sudden moment he realized how pathetic it was, a nearly fifty year old man lying alone in his filthy sheets with come all over his hand and cheese powder on his chin, masturbating to a teenage boy he hadn’t seen in years. Just because some kid half his age had given him the flick. 

Fuck.

He’d...he’d actually thought he'd had a chance with Rudy.

The kid had a bad habit of hunching his shoulders over, was awkward and heavy in his movements and all his clothes looked mismatched and ill-fitting. Despite his narrowed eyes and sticking out teeth, he was absolutely beautiful in a strange way he couldn’t explain.  

He was going to die like this, wasn’t he? Alone with his flaccid dick in hand and come all over himself, dreaming about little boys who all found him completely revolting.  

The wave of depression crashed over him as he rubbed his semen into the sheets and rolled over onto his side. His tiredness had a dull, empty feeling as he slowly drifted off to sleep. 

 

* * *

 

He called in sick the next day. He couldn’t be fucked with anything. He slept in until midday, only getting up because lying around was making his back hurt. 

There was a little convenience store down the street and he went in wearing his boxers, slippers, the old shirt he’d imagined the kid wearing the night before and a black dressing-gown with a skull on the back. The guy behind the counter was used to people like him skulking around and he actually saw a pajama-clad woman down one of the aisles with her hair in rollers, unhappily filling her basket up with ice-cream and chocolate bars. 

He got a stack of beef jerky, pretzels, a bottle of coke and two bags of sweet-chili chips. At the counter, the other depressed customer refused to look at him, like she knew he was in a similar pitiful situation and didn’t want to acknowledge it. 

Back in his apartment, he ordered a large meat-lover’s pizza and put in one of his old VHS tapes from years ago, with the boy he’d called Gaper. He was so named because of his...well...very stretched out part of anatomy. He swore if he looked hard enough at certain points, he’d be able to see the kid’s intestines. 

He’d also chose the video cause he wasn’t in it...he’d filmed it. He wasn’t in the mood to see his bloated body pumping away at some cute, squealing boy who was secretly cringing at the sight of him. He’d probably be sick just watching it.

Half-heartedly jerking off, stuffing food into his mouth, he got bored with the cassette after five minutes and took it out again. He took his indigestion pills with a swig of coke, knowing they were going to be useless if he kept on eating shit all day.  

His back still hurt and so did his ankles, feet and neck. He snorted and cleared out his throat, grabbing a bag of salted peanuts from the cupboard, feeling like a sick, pathetic old man. 

He took another nap on the stained bed, covered in old food crumbs, phlegmy snores filling up the apartment. It was a quarter past three when he got up again, bulging stomach surging up and down with his heavy, nasally breathing.

After taking a shower, frying up a bacon sandwich and picking food crumbs out of his belly-button, he was at a brief loss at what else to do. Maybe he could check up on his site. Just to do anything to pass the time.

He pulled his laptop from under the bed, turning it on as he flopped down on his back across the mattress. While he waited for it to start up, he grabbed the bag of chips and peanuts he’d left on the floor. He poured the salty peanuts into the chip packet and started stuffing them into his mouth as his desktop showed up. Sometimes he kept it pretty normal, maybe just a picture of a favorite band or artist, but other times he’d screen-shot favorite parts of his videos to get him in a good mood when he opened up his computer. Today’s desktop was Devendra Banhart rather then anal fisting. 

Smirking slightly and clicking on the internet symbol, he went onto Google and got into his emails. As usual, he had a few comments and notifications about people favoriting shit. One email interested him though. The header said; _Hi, I’m interested in being in one of your videos?_

His eyes flickered over to the name of the sender; 

_Matt Smith._

He clicked open the message. The email read;

 _Hi! I’m a twink who loves being fucked by dominant men in every way possible. Nothings too dirty for me and I love watching the twinks here being degraded and used up like sex-toys. I’d love to arrange some kind of meeting so we can make a film!  I have a picture of me attached. ;) Hope to speak to you and maybe get closer very soon. ;D_  

Sounded like someone who’d actually enjoy himself in a video, unlike the more formal, almost embarrassed emails and phone-calls he often got. He opened the link up without thinking twice.

His downloading bar popped up and it seemed to take an unusually long time for the picture to load up then usual. He frowned in confusion. A few minutes passed and then suddenly, a hot pink gif started flashing brightly in big capital letters _FUCK YOU!_

Really?

Well that was mature. 

He’d been vaguely excited about seeing this guy as well. Ah well.

He clicked away, but the gif popped up again. He tried to exit out of it, but it wouldn’t let him escape. 

Letting out a little huff of frustration, he clicked and clicked at the little red x in the corner. 

Dozens more copies of the gif started filling up his screen, swarming his desktop like cockroaches, all screaming _FUCK YOU!_

Each time he tried to exit one, another popped up. When he tried to get out of the Preview program the gifs were hosted on, his curser turned into a little spinning rainbow ball. The insult flashed before his eyes and he felt his heart plunge down into the pit of his stomach.

Fucking hell - he didn’t want to put up with this shit right now. 

Exhaling air out harshly, he managed to get onto the internet, clicking at links until he had his site up.

His insides turned to ice all at once.

The whole page had glitched up and his mouth fell open in disbelief. What was once a simple black screen with little thumbnails, titles and links to specific kinks was now a blue and white mess of stuffed together words and pixilated pictures. He tried to scroll down but it stalled and shuddered, the words meshing in on themselves. He tried to click refresh, but the page just showed up the same.

Feeling cold and clammy, he clicked on a link to one of his videos. The video showed up on the glitchy background and for a moment, he thought it would still work. But a caption popped up proclaiming;  _this page can send viruses to your computer,_ which he knew would scare all his viewers away in a heartbeat _._  

When he clicked the play-button, the video was torturously slow and jumpy, restarting and buffering every half second. When he clicked out and tried to open up another, it led him to a page screaming;  _this video cannot be located._

Nearly all the other links showed up the same and when they didn’t, they were jumpy and unwatchable like the first.

He felt like throwing the laptop across the room. The boiling hot water in his body was bubbling out of control, the monster in his head roaring and screeching at the top of his lungs.

Sure, he had an accomplice who was good with computers and could try to fix this mess up. But he’d never seen the site this damaged before. Sure, sometimes it went down, but _nothing_ like this. 

It took half an hour for his entire computer to start wheezing and whirling, all the items and titles on his desktop mashing together into a hieroglyphic mess, the pictures pixilated and ruined. Whenever he’d click on anything, the whole computer would start clacking and clicking painfully and when he restarted the machine, it just grew worse. His cursor disappeared and then the whole screen froze up on a blotchy, neon-colored disaster of pixels. 

He turned the laptop off and just stared at the black screen for a few seconds, heart in his mouth. The animal in his head was screaming for blood, scratching and spitting and writhing. He felt like he was going to be sick, the influx of salt and saturated fat he’d ingested throughout the day making his throat burn with acid bile.

Why was this happening to him?

He closed the lid slowly, feeling something cold and black fill up his head. It felt like there was water freezing his veins into icicles and his blood rushed in his ears. He needed music to calm him down...but of course, all his music was on iTunes. 

He needed one of his boys to fuck.

Wait...

How many of his videos were only on the computer?

His heart started sinking lower and lower by the minute. He had a few hard-copies of his videos, some burnt DVDs and VHS's. But he didn’t have one for everybody. He just couldn’t afford it. He had the rest of them on USB but he wasn’t going to stick it in his computer, knowing the virus would probably wipe that clean as well.

He certainly didn’t have all of his top ten or even his top five on tape or DVD. 

Giggle? No.

Tough Guy? No.

Squirmer? Yeah.

Muso? Yeah.

Kitten? No.

He didn’t even have his fucking favorite for Christ’s sake. He couldn’t see him. He couldn’t see any of them. They’d all been taken away from him. 

Why did this always happen to _him_? Why did the world fucking despise him so much?

The icy-cold fury squeezed like a vice around his insides, drowning him in hatred. 

That Smith guy had sent this. 

That wasn’t the person’s real name...

Who _had_ done it?

What if it was Cindy?

He needed to lie down. He felt like sinking his hands into someone’s flesh and ripping it out in bloody chunks. He felt stabbing whoever did this in the eyes, gouging out their face, and splitting apart their lips and eyelids, felt like tearing out they’re throat and breaking their teeth.

He had to lie down. He had to be calm.

If he ever found the person who’d done this...

...he wouldn’t be able to do anything about it. It wasn’t like he was going to tell people about how someone had stuffed up his gay pornography site. No-one was going to give a fuck. Most people wouldn’t care less about a porn site disappearing off the net.

He had no real power over this person.

They were in total control here.

He had no-way to intimidate them.

...he felt like he was going to cry.

All he wanted was his boys back. They were all he had ever had control over in his life. The only people he’d ever been more powerful then, the only people who had ever been truly scared of him.

He lay back down on his stinking bed. He’d get them back...he’d get them all back even if it fucking killed him. He didn’t care how he did it. He’d take them all down to his fucking grave if he had to, so they’d never have a chance to get away from him again.


	3. Reid

It was early morning and the sky was a bleak, dirty grey. Through the quiet of the cracked industrial street, a black SUV prowled across the tarmac, moving swiftly around a corner. The big, muscled agent behind the wheel glanced at the passing street signs, a slight furrow appearing between his eyes.

"What street did you say it was again, Reid?"

"Thurman Road..." the young man buckled in beside him replied, eyes fixed on the document he was leafing through. Morgan steered the beast of a car down a narrow little street to the left and in the distance they saw an intersection. The familiar flashings of red and blue, flickered and blinked in the faint dawn light.

They pulled up at a stretch of gravel a few steps away from the crime-site. Down by an open concrete pipe, they saw a group of investigators and police officers, milling around, putting up yellow tape, collecting evidence and snapping photos. Hanging over the lip of the pipe, was a grimy white, bloodless hand. The reek of death hung over the air like a wet, musty washcloth, dark, thick and unescapable.

Prentiss was already there, speaking to what was most likely the officer in charge. She nodded at the two as they got out of the car, walking over towards them. After a quick obligatory introduction, Morgan made an instant beeline towards the pipe, shoes crunching over the muddy garbage littered beneath his feet.

Reid shivered, wishing he had worn something warmer as he hurried over to investigate as well. Prentiss and the officer opted to stay at the top of the gravelly embankment, looking in.

The boy was young - preadolescent. His naked body was laid out on the damp concrete, his legs obscenely bent up and parted for the world to see. His hair was black and floppy and his face was fixed in a expression of pure terror.

Reid watched as Morgan bent down to look at him closer. He noticed immediately how tightly the man's shoulders were tensed, how hard his jaw was set. Reid hoped this case wouldn't get to the other man too badly.

"When was he reported missing?" Morgan called over his shoulder towards Prentiss.

"Only last afternoon..." she called back stiffly. "His parents notified the police at 5:30 p.m."

He couldn't hold it in anymore.

"The MO of the kill is identical to that of Charlie Port from two weeks ago," he edged closer to the pipe, words rapidly mixing into one another. "They're the same age and the same build, placed in the exact same degrading positions, post-mortem. There's the same bruising around the neck that suggests strangulation and we have to assume Xavier Arlington has been sexually assaulted in the same way Charlie Port was."

He took a quick breath, before pressing on.

"The UNSUB works extraordinarily fast - his victims are reported missing in the same afternoon they were last seen walking home from school. Which means, if we're here..." he quickly checked his watch; "at 6.30, the victims were raped, murdered and dumped in the immediate thirteen hours after they were abducted. "

"Which suggests that the UNSUB might be murdering his victim's in a vehicle...maybe he commits the rape and strangulation in the back of a van before quickly finding a place to dump the body," Prentiss suggested from the embankment.

Morgan's face coiled up slightly, before returning back to it's stony professionalism.

"Obviously he doesn't need them around for too long...he only sees them as disposable toys for his pleasure..."

Reid moved aside to let a woman through with a camera, as she snapped a photo of the crime scene from a different angle.

"I think we should investigate the routes the victim's walk home," Morgan said, taking a step forward towards the upwards slope where Prentiss was standing.

"JJ and Hotch are interviewing the parents, right?"

He was already reaching for his phone before she could answer. He turned his back to them as he tapped the number in.

Ignoring this, Reid moved closer to the opening of the pipe, apologising as he squeezed past the small bundle of people surrounding it. Something caught his eye. He hadn't noticed it before...but written on the dripping concrete, right above the spread-eagled body - in what he had to guess was blood - was the single word HA!

The same word had been carved into the trunk of the tree, where Charlie Port's body had been dumped under.

"Prentiss?" he called, waving her over as he examined the jeering word more closely. He heard her coming up behind him, cursing her high heels as she stumbled slightly down the gravelly hill.

"Well - he's mocking somebody obviously," she said when she finally arrived beside him, squinting up at what he'd found. "The parents, the police..."

"Maybe he has some kind've connection to the families affected..." Reid pondered aloud. "He may resent them for some reason..."

Suddenly up at the embankment, the police officer, talking to someone with a plastic zip-lock bag of evidence, turned around sharply, staring at something down the road. Prentiss glanced up and Morgan turned, pushing his phone back into his pocket. He quickly jogged up to meet the officer, who was making frustrated noises and striding towards whatever it was that had caught his attention.

Prentiss quickly followed the two men, leaving the youngest agent to gaze up at the two bleeding letters alone.

He heard their faint conversation in the distance, his mind working over as he picked apart at all the little details of their evidence so far. He could hear the officer's exasperated voice and he gave in to curiosity, tuning in to what they were saying.

"...he's been hanging around the case like a bad smell...he was at Port's dumping site, hanging around his parents, calling out lewd comments..."

He paused as Morgan murmured something urgently.

"Yeah, yeah we investigated it all, pulled his apartment apart, held him as long as we were able too...but nothing came of it. Trust me, Reynolds' just a local creep..."

A few muttered words from the two agents and then

...even more faintly, almost a whisper in the distance...

"...I bet they liked it! I bet they liiiked it! In the ass, in the assssss...!"

Reid turned around, frowning slightly, not quite understanding the sudden uncomfortable tightening in his stomach. Morgan was staring down the road with his fists clenched, the officer pinching at the bridge of his nose in frustration.

"How does he know where the dump-sites are?" Morgan growled, voice harsh and low. "How does he know where to show up at just the right moment?"

"And if he's a local creep," Prentiss hastily put in, Reid scrambling up the hill towards them; "he might have something to do with the case...he might know our UNSUB..."

Down at the far end of the street was a faint figure sitting on the curb. He was swigging from a bottle and yelling out obscenities.

"...fucking tight, baby assholes!" the stranger hollered and Morgan seemed to grow more and more quietly furious by the second.

"Hot, tight and wet for Daddy! Stretch it out, streeeetch it out for Daddy, sweet thing...!"

Reid felt something sharp and painful stab deep down in his gut all at once. He didn't know why his breath suddenly felt all short and useless in his lungs and he tried to focus on the figure down the road, the tightness in his chest nearly choking him.

"I mean...you guys can go ahead and question him if you want...he's been our only solid lead so far, but take it from me, I don't think he's the type to start going after kids..." the police officer was explaining, but the words seemed faint in Spencer's ears.

"Why's that?" Prentiss asked and the officer pulled a face in reply, like he'd just drunken a pitcher of vinegar.

"I've had a few calls about him...he's made sexual advances towards a few teenage boys..." at the look on Morgan's face, he quickly added, "they were all around eighteen or nineteen though..."

When Reid looked down at the concrete, he saw that his hands were shaking. He stuffed them deep into his pockets, not wanting anyone to see his moment of weakness. He had to get a handle on himself...he had to calm down. He was probably just jumping to conclusions.

But when he looked down the road, that little figure on the horizon stirred something raw and painful deep down inside him. He could see that the man was overweight...and although he had his body turned slightly away from them, he could see faint curls of his orangey-blonde hair.

Do you remember how heavy he was, how you thought all your bones were going to break under his weight, do you remember...?

No, he was being ridiculous, he had to be calm, he had to stay cool. He had to be a professional, he couldn't lose his head, he couldn't...

"It's a good idea to take him in for questioning," Morgan was saying in a firm voice. "If he knows anything about who could be behind this, we need to know."

"Sure, sure..." the officer nodded, waving his hand around dismissively. "Go ahead, don't mind me."

The larger man nodded slightly, before he started making his way down the road, shoulders squared, drawing himself up to his full intimidating height.

They watched as he said a few, short words to the drunken man sprawled over the curb. There was a loud, derisive laugh and then "Jesus fuckin' Christ, I didn't even fuck them..."

Prentiss winced and the officer made a disgusted sound.

Reid was biting his lower lip hard enough to bleed and he felt his stomach doing slow, steady flops, around and around and around...he was going to vomit, he was going to throw up, oh God...

He turned his face away, tugging the thin fabric of his cardigan around himself tighter, trying to get his breathing under control. He watched out of the corner of his eye as Morgan grabbed the man by the collar, hauling him up to his feet.

He was going to be sick...he was going to be sick...

It was him, it was him, it was him...oh god he was going to throw up, this couldn't be happening...

"...Mr Reynolds, you're not doing yourself any favors talking like that..." Prentiss was saying as the twin footsteps grew closer and closer.

"Why the fuck am I even here?" the loud, slightly nasal voice snarled.

... _"little kitten's so hard..."_

"...I ain't even done shit, why don't you all go fuck yourselves, bunch of fucking Federal cunts...!"

... _"you like eating Daddy's come don't you?"_

God, why did the world seem so unsteady all of a sudden, he wasn't going to fall over, he wasn't going to be weak, he wasn't...

"Well as you've insisted on hanging around the crime scene, Mr Reynolds," Prentiss continued, completely ignoring the slew of profanity he'd just unleashed on her; "we're going to have to take you in for questioning, as you've just made yourself our most credible suspect..."

Reid stared down at the concrete, refusing to look around, his back turned to them firmly. He had to get a grip on himself. He had to calm down. All that had happened years ago for Christ's sake... _years_  ago...he wasn't a kid anymore, he wasn't some scared little boy...

_But do you remember his hands on you, his hands between your legs, how he touched your most intimate spots..._

He breathed out hard, in and out, and focused on the heated conversation behind him again. His hands were shaking so hard, he had to squeeze them together to make them stop.

"I've already been questioned, you fucking bitch," the man spat and his voice was laden with such acid, he heard the officer cough a little in surprise. "Bet you wish it was your cum-filled asshole over there, don'tcha? Those boys are dripping with it...I can smell 'em from here..."

Reid gagged and he heard Morgan give the man a rough shake.

"You watch your goddamned mouth before I shut it for you!"

But the woman wasn't fazed by the man's vile abuse at all.

"We're with the FBI, Mr Reynolds at the Behavioral Analysis Unit. That's why you're being subjected to more questioning," she told him coldly. "I'll be seeing you there."

There was a hawking, phlegmy sound in response as Morgan wrenched the man away from the dark-haired woman, marching him off across the tarmac.

Reid looked carefully over his shoulder and felt the entire bottom of his stomach drop out.

Morgan had a firm grip on the man's sallow, mottled forearm. He was nursing a bourbon bottle to his chest, growling obscenities, eyes narrowed with hatred.

He was older...wider...and his teeth were more stained and the bags under his eyes were heavier. But it was still him. Definitely, completely him. Dressed in an old black dressing gown, greying t-shirt, boxer shorts and slippers. Wavering on the spot, slightly tipsy - but his eyes were as sharp and cunning as ever.

_Do you remember how they raked up and down your body like you were a piece of meat he was about to eat up...?_

_Do you remember them clouded over with lust as he spread your legs and..._

As soon as the memory flashed through his mind, the man's sunken eyes slid over and caught the younger man's gaze immediately. Reid felt his skin shrink up tight over his bones all at once and the bugs started crawling under his skin and he couldn't look away, couldn't break the contact...

The man was staring right into him, mouth hanging slightly open as Morgan pushed him past the younger agent, leading him over towards the SUV. The overwhelming stench of alcohol, cheap aftershave and musky sweat hit him all at once...

_Do you remember being surrounded by his smell as he pressed his stomach against you, pressed something else deep, deep inside you, hurt so much, burning, tearing..._

_"Ohh..."_  came the sudden breathy moan as the man looked back at him, his eyes darkening liquid black. Spencer just stared him down, determined not to break his gaze as his fat, pink tongue slid out over his rubbery lips.

"...little boy all grown up," he whispered and then he grinned like a wolf with his yellow, glistening teeth. Reid just glared back, trying to hide the shudder that wracked through his body.

Morgan seemed to pause in mid-step, hand tightening at the man's forearm. He stared at him for about three seconds before turning around to stare at Reid. His face worked and he opened his mouth like he wanted to say something, eyes shining with something strange and emotional as he figured everything out all at once.

The shame suddenly hit him so hard, it was like a tidal wave of water crashing over his body. All the breath left him and Morgan's eyes were so searching and confused and _his_  eyes were so dark and hungry and it was all too much, it hurt too much. He turned away and resisted the urge to wrap his arms around himself protectively like he would've done when he was younger, cause he was an adult now and he was supposed to be over this, this wasn't supposed to hurt so much, it wasn't, it wasn't...

He bit his lip again, right on the sore part where he'd chewed at before, bit so hard he thought he'd break through the skin. He stared at a point at the ground, focused all his energy on staring at it and tried desperately to keep his shoulders from shaking and his eyes from tingling. He had to keep his head. He had to be calm.

His stomach rolled as he heard a soft cooing sound from behind him and then muffled laughter.

"You get in the car right now, you sick bastard," he heard Morgan hiss as viciously as he'd ever heard him before and the humiliation was so strong, he felt like curling up in a ball on the road until no-one could see him ever again.

Without turning back around, he walked up to Prentiss, who was still in conversation with the officer. Her gaze was softer then usual when he came up by her side.

"Morgan's taking him back for questioning?" she said lightly and he nodded, avoiding her eyes. She didn't push it, keeping her expression as neutral as possible. She said a quick goodbye to the officer, before marching off to the sleek grey car she'd arrived in. Spencer trawled by her side with his hands stuffed in his pockets, staring at the ground, wishing he was anywhere but here.

"JJ and Hotch are going to question the victim's families, teachers, neighbors, etcetera," Prentiss was explaining and he forced himself to stay focused, diverting his attention onto her voice. "Morgan told me that we should check out their walking routes, while he and Rossi interrogate...uh...while they interrogate Reynolds."

Spencer nodded, not saying a word. When they climbed into the car, he fought the urge to curl up in on himself, like an insect in a puddle of bug-spray. His fingernails were biting into his palms so hard, his knuckles shone white through his skin.

Something was starting to grow and pulse deep down inside his chest. A bleeding, infected mass of muscle that shot white-hot tendrils of pain through his body, with every single breath.

Do you remember him kissing your forehead as you cried?

Do you remember the names he called you, do you remember how he groped at you, how he laughed at you, how small and childish and weak you felt, do you remember how you called him Daddy, how sick you felt, how  _sick_  it was..

But you didn't stop him, did you?

Prentiss eyed him cautiously as he pressed his forehead against the freezing glass of the window, his shoulders bunching up under his ears, clenching his eyes shut. He just wanted to block the entire world out. He just wanted to get away from here.

He was thankful she didn't see the need to question him about it.

He didn't think the swelling in his chest could handle it.

* * *

They drove through the streets and past Charlie and Xavier's separate elementary schools, in the tree-lined, white-picketed suburbs. They drove Charlie's way first, noting that his trip didn't take very long at all compared to Xavier, who had a slightly longer way to walk home.

"So Xavier only lives around the corner from Charlie," Prentiss pondered as they drove past the Port's humble family home. Although the sting in his chest was throbbing harder and larger by the second, Reid could push the pain to the back of his mind when he had a case to focus on.

"Well we know that our UNSUB picks his victim's from this specific area...but he probably wouldn't live close by...maybe he'd be a few suburbs away..." she continued.

"Most likely a poorer area..." he suggested quietly. "The word HA suggests...suggests...real bitterness. Maybe he hates the fact that these families are well off, when he isn't..."

The woman nodded and reversed, so she could drive back down Xavier's route. Spencer's eyes stared fixedly out the window for any clue, trying to do anything to distract himself from what was happening back at the BAU.

He breathed in and then out, trying to get rid of the buzzing in his head, his breath fogging up the glass. He reached up to wipe it off and his eyes caught something.

"Prentiss!" he said suddenly, licking his lips as he sat up in his seat. "Go back...go back towards Zinnia Avenue...!"

She rolled the wheel around through her fingers, driving around the corner and down the street.

"What is it?" she demanded.

"They intersect! Zinnia Avenue is the most direct way Charlie gets home, because his house is right around the corner, but at the end of this street is a dead-end road that connects to the back of Xavier's school! Instead of walking home by the front way, which takes him longer, he'd take this short-cut which is right on Charlie's route. And look, Zinnia Avenue is fairly busy...no-one would notice a car, van or whatever driving by..."

"We should get police stationed in this immediate area, especially during the after school hours," Prentiss suggested instantly. "Although there's a good chance the UNSUB will move on to another neighborhood...there's too much of a risk, sticking to such a specific spot for too long."

"Of course...but now we know he almost definitely took both his victims from this street. Maybe we can..."

"..go door-knocking down Zinnia?" she cut in and Reid nodded. They pulled up at the curb at the end of the street, parking underneath a wide, billowing willow tree. Climbing out, Reid straightened his cardigan around himself, shivering in the cold and Prentiss pointed at the house straight ahead of them.

"Should we start with that one?" she asked and he tucked his hair behind his ear.

"Of course."

The first handful of houses proved only slightly successful - the residents remembered students walking by, but no strange vehicle picking a kid up. Apparently the street was used as a frequent pick-up spot by parents, so someone picking up the two boys wouldn't be seen as anything dreadfully unusual.

The two agents glanced at each other, as they walked back out onto the sidewalk. This obviously implied the victim's knew their murderer somehow. Someone was bound to notice a kid been dragged screaming into a vehicle...but if they just hopped in without complaint, no-one would bat an eye.

They reached a house smack dab in the middle of the street and when they knocked, an old man in a plaid shirt came toddling to the door.

"Hello sir," said Prentiss, getting out her badge. "My name is Emily Prentiss and this is my associate, Doctor Spencer Reid. We're with the FBI and we're investigating the kidnapping of Charlie Port and Xavier Arlington..."

"What was that ma'am, ye must excuse me," the man cut in, squinting up at them and grinning a gummy little smile. "I'm quite a bit hard of hearing y'see. Ah, it was back in about 1944 it was, back when I was in Scotland y'see, and me idiot brother Alistair, well he gone and hit a tennis ball square in me ear he did, and me hearin's been all knocked to shite ever since..."

Prentiss smiled and Reid tried to as well, but he couldn't quite manage it. The elderly man's eyes swept over to him instantly.

"Ah sonny, ye look like death's been breathing down yair neck ye do!" he told him sternly and Reid felt himself flush a little with embarrassment.

"It's this damned weather it is, but I must say it don't compare to a Scottish winter. Ahh back in the day's when I was a young lad, the winter's were as cold as a witch's tit, if yair mind me language."

Before they could manage to get a word in, he was rattling on again.

"Ye know sonny, I could pop in and get you a nice cuppa tea, maybe add a drop o' whiskey to it if ye like. Warm ye right up - aye I've always sworn that whiskey is the good lord's medicine..."

"Thank you..." Reid said as Prentiss struggled to suppress her grin from beside him. "Sir, we're from the FBI...I'm Doctor Spencer Reid and this is Agent Prentiss. We're investigating the kidnapping of Charlie Port and Xavier Arlington...?"

"Ahh...I heard of them poor lads..." the elderly man cut in again and his face grew a little more pinched, his dark eyes growing sad and pensive. And then he was talking again, staring up at them earnestly;

"Y'see I do enjoy a spot o' gardening and I'd often see a few of the young children walkin' by. Ever since me own lass, Sian, well she's grown up now o' course, but I remember when she was still but a wee thing, she used to get harassed in the street a fair bit. Still only a school-girl as well, ah, you don't treat a girl like that no matter what her age...but ever since then, I'd schedule me gardening 'round the time when the wee little bairns be walkin' home. Just to keep an eye on them in case some strange man be getting the wrong idea. It's why I felt so dreadful about them poor boys...felt I shoulda kept me eyes open a bit more..."

Prentiss nodded with sympathy, as the elderly man sighed, shaking his head, clearly disappointed in himself.

"I think it's very good of you to be looking out for the local kids, sir. Not many people can be bothered nowadays," she told him encouragingly before putting in; "I was wondering if you've seen anything suspicious around here lately? Maybe while you were doing your gardening? Strange cars, vans...?"

"Ahh..." the man said slowly, furrowing his brow. "Ahh, ye see, other's around me age get to forgettin' all these little details, but I still got me head screwed tight on me shoulders. I do remember seeing a big black van around yesterday afternoon...I remember it so, cause I saw one near identical to it about week or so ago an'..."

He suddenly grew deadly silent, eyes widening in horror. He looked up at them, as the realization hit him all at once and all the color rushed out of his face.

"That was it, wasn't it?" he murmured and turned away, running a hand over his face. "Ah, why didn't I realize...?"

"It's not your fault," Prentiss gently reassured him. "You've been incredibly helpful to us. Did you manage to get the number plate by any chance?"

The old man shook his head, trembling slightly.

"So sorry ma'am, didn't think to take a look at it at all," he said. He was looking very shaken up.

"Thank you very much, sir."

"Ahh," the man waved a spotted hand around, after he had seemed to get himself a little more under control.

"You tell me when the bastard's been caught now won'tcha, lassie?"

"I'll make sure of it," Prentiss smiled and the man returned it graciously. After saying their goodbyes, they made their way out the gate and back towards the car again.

"I guess we can do a check on all the black vans in the area, but it might be better to hone in a bit further, find some more common variables," the woman was suggesting and Reid nodded absent-mindedly. He had been very quiet during the door-knockings - unable to ignore the pinching feeling at the back of his skull and the heavy sickness in his stomach. He really hoped by the time they got back to the BAU, Morgan and Rossi had managed to get rid of...of...

He took a deep shuddering breath in, not wanting to think about it.

He was climbing into the car and buckling himself in, when his phone went off. Prentiss started up the car, driving back down Zinnia Avenue as he got it out of his pocket.

"Reid speaking."

There was a slightly uncomfortable noise from the other end of the line.

"It's Morgan," the familiar voice said into his ear. "Look...uh...Rossi and I have been trying to talk to this guy and Hotch and JJ have come over and tried to as well. Uh...look kid, he's...he's refusing to...refusing to talk to anyone but you."

Reid clenched his eyes shut and felt his skin do an awful nauseating crawl across his bones. He didn't want to...he didn't want to confront him...God, he could just imagine it...sitting in a goddamned interrogation room with that face leering down at him all over again...

No he couldn't...he couldn't do it...he couldn't...

"Look kid, I can tell him to take a hike if that's what you're more comfortable with..."

Reid breathed in hard, biting into his lip, feeling the awful bubbling in his veins surge like poison through his body.

The memory of the old Scottish man, disgusted with himself for not watching the local kids flashed through his mind and he knew he had to do it, knew he had to talk to him. He couldn't be weak. He couldn't hide away and snivel like a child because of something that had happened to him years ago.

"No...no...I'll do it Morgan," he said, his voice tired and strained. "I can talk to him...I can handle it."

"I know you can, kid," the other man replied. "I don't know what happened between you and him, but you don't have to be ashamed, okay? You can talk to any of us, we're not gonna judge you..."

Spencer's chest was too tight...his intestines were twisting and writhing and he felt too dizzy, too sick.

"I know..." he said, swallowing around the lump in his throat. "Th-thanks Morgan...I'll be right there."

"No problem Reid."

He disconnected. Sitting back in his seat, he saw that his hands were shaking again at his knees. He coiled them tight into the ribbed material of his cords. There was a feeling of impending disaster looming in his heart. God, he didn't want to go, he didn't want to do this, he didn't want to see him again...

He rubbed at his eyes, willing himself to calm down. Prentiss glanced at him worriedly and he sniffed, clearing out his throat.

"Uh...that was Morgan...he wants us back at the BAU," he said and he hated the way his voice cracked at the end of the sentence. She nodded and he was grateful she could sense he didn't want to talk about it.

They drove on down the suburban streets and the sickening mixture of nausea and terror grew stronger and stronger in his chest, the closer and closer they got to the BAU again.

* * *

He walked past the bullpen and down the corridors leading to the interrogation room, Prentiss clicking by his side in her heels. There was a strange buzzing in his head and his hands felt numb, tongue swollen and dry in his mouth.

There seemed to be a ruckus going on outside the viewing room. He could see Morgan's broad, muscled shoulders, turned away from him, whispering to somebody he was firmly holding back. As they drew closer, he saw the curly blonde hair and bright flowered dress of Garcia, struggling against Morgan's strong arms.

"...you can't let him in there with that  _pervert_ , what the hell are you thinking, you can't let him in there, you can't, I won't let you, you  _won't_...!"

Reid felt his cheeks flushing with embarrassment as he slid as inconspicuously as he could through to the viewing room, Prentiss walking over to try and calm the other woman down.

"Spencer no...!"

He shut the door, cutting her off, feeling his hands begin to shake uncontrollably again. He turned around in the tiny dark room and caught Hotch's eye, standing by the mirror with the police officer from before by his side. He nodded at him when he entered, as grim-faced as ever, pressing a thin bundle of papers into his hands.

"This is what we've got on Harrison Reynolds," he told him shortly, his face revealing nothing. "Reid, it's imperative that you find out whether he has any knowledge about this case or not. Our UNSUB works fast. With his last two successful murders, his confidence is growing, meaning the time between his kills will decrease. We don't have any time to waste...do you understand?"

Reid nodded, not meeting his eye as he flicked through the papers at top-speed. As the information soaked in, he felt his breathing begin to calm and his muscles relax. These were facts...solid facts. He could find confidence in facts and statistics. He could do this. He could...

Looking up, he stared through the viewing mirror and into the interrogation room. Rossi was growling across the table with JJ flanking his side, hissing something over towards...towards...

Him...with a hand hanging between his legs, sprawled back smugly in his chair, smirking over at them. His stained shirt had pulled up slightly to reveal his sagging beer belly, his dressing gown was hanging around his swollen, hairy ankles.

All those years and years ago, he'd looked like any other person you'd pass by on the street. But now he looked a filthy bloated grub, blinking moistly up at them.

"I ain't gonna talk to you and your cock-sucking whore," he sneered, before clearing out his throat with a soggy, phlegmy sound. "I wanna talk to the kitten. Maybe I can bend him over the table and give you all a show, huh?"

JJ's glossy lips curled up as she struggled not to look at him with disgust, clearly playing the good cop. Rossi didn't care about that and openly stared down his nose at the man with complete and utter disdain.

"You're gonna be lucky if you get out of here at all...we read up on your website,  _Reynolds_...it's gone down recently hasn't it? Why's that, finally got yourself some morals?"

"Ain't fuckin' illegal to run a porn site, what you from the 1920's or some shit?" the man shot back, cocking his head to the side in a threatening manner. "Now why don't you shut your mouth and send your boy in? Cause he does things with his mouth I like a whole fucking lot."

The humiliation was hitting him in waves and he wanted to turn around and run away. He knew his cheeks were flushing red and he fought back the urge to just put the file in Hotch's hands and walk out the door again. He had his facts...he had to focus on his facts. He couldn't let his disgusting words get to him. He breathed in and then out, telling himself to stay calm, telling himself not to get effected by this...

The door creaked open before Rossi could say anything back to the man. Reid jumped a little. He hadn't noticed Morgan sliding into the room behind him.

"Rossi, JJ," he nodded at them. "I think we're done with him for now."

They both got up - the most perfect good and bad cop imaginable - and briskly walked out again. Inside the room, the swollen, sallow-skinned man settled down more comfortably, the smirk still hanging on his lips. Reid looked away, skin crawling.

The memories were filling up his mind again...sitting across from him on the couch as he pointed the camera at him, in that exact same goddamned position.

He remembered that sudden shot of fear that had gone through him, back when he was nineteen. Of suddenly realizing all at once, what exactly he'd gotten himself into, how there was no turning back...of the man uncrossing his legs ahead of him, displaying clearly what his nervous stuttering words were doing to him.

The surge of bile was like battery acid at the back of his throat, before he told himself to push those revolting memories away. He steeled himself, fixing his face into a blank slate and walked forward. Rossi and Morgan nodded shortly at him as he passed and JJ sent him a small, encouraging smile. The door fell shut, reminding him of a cell door slamming closed for the night, locking him in with him.

When he walked into the dim interviewing room, he felt that tension in the air immediately. Something harsh and toxic that flooded his lungs and boiled his blood, until it was clotted and syrupy in his veins.

There was something thick and heavy, hanging like poison all around them - so strong, it made the younger man's throat clench up and the raw, fragile spot in his chest ache with pain. Ache so hard, he thought it might just burst open and bleed out all over the floor. He took a deep breath in.

Sitting down, stacking his papers in front of himself, he didn't hesitate to meet those dark, burning eyes across the table for a second.

"Mr Reynolds, my name is Dr. Spencer Reid, Supervisory Agent here at the BAU - I understand that you're...refusing to answer my colleagues questions on the rape and murder of Charlie Port and Xavier Arlington..."

"Why don't you call me Harry, sweetheart," the man smirked, and his lips pulled back over his teeth in a predatory smile. He was leaning slightly forward now and his eyes were heavily lidded, pupils blown fully black.

"God, I nearly forgot how pretty you were..."

Reid thought he could feel the eyes of the rest of the team, watching from behind the glass and his insides coiled up, his skin prickling and itching across his bones.

"You're to call me Doctor Reid, Mr Reynolds or we'll end this interview and another agent will talk to you instead," he told him shortly, voice clipped and cold.

Something flashed dangerously in the other man's eyes.

The memory suddenly hit him all at once, hit him so hard, for a second all the oxygen left his lungs. Of the suffocating terror that clouded his mind as big, groping hands slid all over his body - those eyes glinting warningly when he tried desperately to squirm away, tried to get away from him and his huge, exploring hands...

" _Spencer Reid,_ " he drawled the name out in relish, grin growing wider, showing every last one of his nicotine stained teeth. " _Aww_...even your name is cute."

Reid didn't say anything, all of his muscles tensed and coiled up. He wished he could push the influx of memories back, but they were swarming his mind like cockroaches. The pet names whispered reverently down into the crook of his neck, the soggy kisses over his crawling skin, the guttural moans and afterwards...afterwards with the blood running down his leg and, and...

...and how he felt so  _filthy_...so...so  _unclean_...

The man leaned in close across the table, so close they were nearly centimeters apart. His thick fingers slid over to gently brush the soft skin at his inner wrist.

"Y'know, you were always my favorite," he whispered and his breath was warm, so close Reid felt it brush damply against his face. "Out of all my boys...you were always my baby."

Reid snapped his hand back immediately and he wasn't going to be that terrified teen anymore - trapped on a downwards spiral, with no money to support himself, his mother's medical bills growing larger and larger by the day, no way out, no escape. He wasn't that boy anymore...he wouldn't be scared by him...he wouldn't be cowed.

He  _wouldn't_.

"I'm not sure if you understand the seriousness of the situation," he said and his voice was perfectly composed, echoing slightly around the room. "There's a man out there raping and murdering little boys and the more you talk about some liaison that happened years ago, the more time we waste when we could be looking for him. The more innocent lives  _you_  put at risk. Can you make sense of what I'm saying, Mr Reynolds?"

The man just stared at him for a few seconds. For a moment there was something so burning hot behind his eyes, something so angry...

Reid breathed in hard and the tightness in his chest was growing too strong to bear. There was something so hurt and tender hanging over them, something bleeding and inflamed. Something that took all the oxygen away, leaving only an sickening, airless vacuum that sucked away all his breath. Something just awfully intimate and that thought made him feel so sick and exposed and vulnerable, like someone had peeled away all his skin, leaving only a slather of bloody muscle and open nerves behind.

He couldn't do this, he couldn't do this, he couldn't, he couldn't...

"Oh now you think your fucking better then me, do you?" he was snarling over at him, teeth shining greasily in the florescent light.

"Little doctor so high and mighty, eh?"

His smirk grew twisted as he shifted closer in his seat, so close it seemed like they were breathing the same breath. Reid swallowed around the growing lump in his throat and didn't break his gaze.

"Does anyone know how much you cried when I had my cock jammed up your ass?" he hissed viciously, showering him with a fine layer of spit.

"Or how about you choking on it like a cheap, dirty slut? Do they know how I came all over your pretty little face with you red asshole all stretched out for me? Huh? Fancy fucking doctor?"

Reid didn't say anything. It felt like his stomach was shrinking up inside him, dropping deep down into his bowels.

The urge to cry was growing so strong...

He couldn't be weak...

He couldn't...

He stared down at his hands, where he'd folded them one over the other on top of the table. He was aware of how close they still were to each other - they're foreheads almost touching. He wanted to move away, but knew it would be seen as a sign of fear, a sign the man was getting to him. And he knew if other man saw any sign that he was scared, he'd pounce like an animal and tear him into little bloody shreds on the floor.

He breathed in, dank sweat and alcohol fumes filling up his nose and flooding his skull with poison.

"I'm not here to play power games with you," he told him and his voice was low and soft. "I'm here for something more important then that. I know the only thing that's ever mattered to you is having power...and I know that stems from your massive sense of inferiority..."

"Oh yeah?" the man cooed back at at him, eyes burning with something darkly venomous. Reid just pushed on, swallowing as he clasped his hands in front of himself, so close to those thick, sallow fingers at the table-top.

He had his facts, he had his fact, he had his...

He steeled himself again, before he finally spoke.

"You've...never had any power, have you Harry?" he asked him, looking up and meeting his gaze. The man just stared back, face narrowed and cold.

"You've never held a job for more then a year or two," he said, staring up at him, not blinking. "You've lived in cheap apartments in the poor parts of town all your life. Even as a child, you were always aware of how little you mattered to anybody. That thought, of how insignificant you were to everyone else around you...it made you so angry, didn't it?"

The man said nothing. His lips were turning up in a thin, crooked smirk, his eyes two squinted hateful slits.

"Your attitude towards women...that spurns from your experiences with your older sister, Deanna. After your parents, Craig and Joanne died in a drink-driving related accident when you were fifteen - she was made to be you and your younger brother Bryson's legal guardian. And she never paid you any attention."

His breath was rattling in his lungs and he felt the shift in the room moving slowly, steadily around him. He watched as the man's fists clenched tight at the table top, fatty lips sucking in, nostrils flaring.

"She was always out, she was never home..." Spencer pushed on regardless of the potent fury he could feel burning from across the table. "if you were lucky, she'd come back with cheap takeaway for dinner and she always had some new boy on her arm. And the social workers and the teachers didn't care...didn't care that the apartment you were renting was a pig-sty and you came to school filthy everyday."

The man's eyes sparked with something strange and violent and emotional and the words were tumbling uncontrollably from the younger man's lips, a bubbling, unstoppable wave.

"They only cared about Bryson...because he was the one in the car with your parents that night...he was the traumatized one. Deanna looked after him...she loved him. And Deanna and Bryson were good-looking, healthy children and to you, everybody loved them so much. Bryson was talented at school and Deanna was sociable and popular. But then there was Harry in the middle. You were overweight, nothing to look at compared to your brother and sister, you were getting nowhere at school, and you had all your health issues with your chronic dyspepsia and obesity...you weren't anything special. You were going nowhere and no-one cared...you were nothing..."

There was a high-pitched ringing in his ears and a fine layer of sweat coating his face - and Harry's eyes looked like two black holes staring across from him. His mouth was slightly open, showing all his bared crooked teeth like a hungry animal. And all Reid could do was keep on talking, unable to stop.

"..you hated it. You hated it so much. And you hated her the most, because she was supposed to care, she was supposed to look after you after your parents died, but she didn't. And you couldn't say anything, because she had all the power. You were just a minuscule speck in her life and you hated that. You were so angry, angry at everyone and everything and there was nothing you could do about it. You had no-one to take out your rage on, no-one weak enough to overpower...no-one except for Bryson."

Harry swallowed hard and slid his hands away into his lap. Spencer thought he could sense them clenching and unclenching in a steady rhythm under the table.

"Deanna reported you as soon as she found out what you were doing to your brother. And when you violated him every night, you felt so strong and powerful. You felt like a man and Bryson was nothing. Bryson was weak and you were bigger, stronger, the dominant one. You felt so good, better then you'd ever felt in a long time. But Deanna turned you in and the only reason you got away with it, was because Bryson refused to testify. You'd scared him too badly...scared him into submission. And that was the feeling you loved the most - the fact that you could terrify a vulnerable little boy to the point where he submitted to your every whim."

His flabby muscles worked and the fists clenched harder and harder, over and over again underneath the table.

"And when you got older, with all your menial low-paying jobs, being undermined and made to feel worthless on a daily basis...that's the feeling you craved for again. The only way you could get a sense of power, the only way you could ever feel like you were actually important, that you actually meant something, was was when you were preying on someone younger and more fragile. That's what you did with all the people in your videos...that's why you made your videos in the first place...so you could feel like you were something, anything at all. When someone was scared of you, you were something. And when they left, you were nothing again."

Reid paused to take a breath, looking back down at his stack of papers. He shuffled them around as the man slowly hunched over, tendons standing up red and stark in his neck.

"You're trying to do that again with me. But it's not going to work Harry, because I'm not some traumatized child anymore. So stop wasting my time and answer the question - do you know who killed Charlie Port and Xavier Arlington or not?"

The silence in the room was ringing in his ears - loud and deadly and deafening.

The hatred in the man's eyes was so strong, it was like he wanted to burn holes through the younger man's skin. He put his short, stubby fingers back on the table top and they clamped into fists immediately, squeezing so tight, his knuckles shone through his yellow-tinged flesh.

"I wish I coulda fucked you harder," he hissed suddenly through clenched teeth. "I wish I could've fucked you so hard you bled to fucking death, like a goddamned little bitch."

Spencer said nothing as the man's breath become tight and labored with rage. Then he sat back all at once, eyes squeezing shut, lips pinching down into one short, thin line. There was a painfully long pause as the man's phlegmy breath struggled in and out of his tar-encrusted lungs.

When he opened his eyes again, they were wild and damp, his face pulling into a grimace of agony...and Spencer wondered if it was his heart-burn setting in...or something else.

"I don't even know who killed those brats, okay?" he shot out, spit flying from his mouth, eyes glistening in their deeply-set sockets. "Bryson's a police cunt, he was put on the case...I rang him up and forced him to tell me when there was a murder going on, so I could go and watch..."

Reid exhaled harshly and there was a sudden prickling behind his eyes that he couldn't control. He turned down quickly to hide it, shuffling his papers and getting to his feet.

"Thank-you for your cooperation Mr Reynolds. One of my colleagues will escort you out."

He turned on his heel to leave, but there was a loud grunt from behind him and he looked over at the flabby-skinned man who had once scared him so much. He had a crazed look in his sunken shining eyes.

"I was only there in the first place cause I don't have nothing else, alright?" he rasped and his voice cracked, like he was about to burst into tears. "Don't you stand there and fucking judge me like all the rest of them! All I had were my fucking videos...and they took those away from me too, they took my boys away from me, they took you away from me, I don't have nothing else..."

He slammed his fists down hard at the table and the cracking sound made Reid's heart jump to his throat and his body seize up.

"I know who it was, I know it, I know..." he was roaring, spittle landing on his chin as his eyes gleamed with uncontrollable rage. "She fucked up my computer, she fuckin' hacked my fuckin' website, it was her, it was that fat blonde bitch I know it was, she took my boys away, I know she did it, I know she did..."

Reid was frozen.

The whole world was frozen.

His veins felt like they'd been replaced with icy water and his skin was suddenly too hot, he was covered in too much sweat, the colors and the sounds and the smells were too hard, all too strong, all too much, too fucking much. His breath came out all shuddering and he was turning and grappling for the door handle, needing to get out, needing to get away.

"You're not so fucking special, I know you fucking liked it, I made you come, I made you come all over yourself, you coulda walked away, you came to me, you came to me fucking goddamned pretty boy...!"

He was pushing through the tiny viewing room, the rest of the team reaching out for him, JJ with tears in her eyes, Prentiss with her face drawn and white and he heard Rossi, Hotch and Morgan bursting into the interview room behind him, heard Morgan's booming, furious voice echoing in his ears. And he was flying down the corridor, through the bullpen, the whole world a bright, sharp kaleidoscope of colors and sounds and it was making him feel so sick.

And the aching scab in the middle of his chest was about to burst, it was going to explode, he felt himself cracking up, this was too much, too much, too much, and before he knew it, he was banging at her office door, trying to breathe, and he couldn't see, he couldn't breathe...

The door creaked open and her big eyes peered out at him from behind fogged up glasses, and she was crying, and she knew, and she knew...

"R-Reid...?" she squeaked up at him. He could feel the hot wetness dribbling down his cheeks, felt his throat close over and cement line his lungs as he stared at her, not wanting to believe it, not wanting to, he couldn't, he couldn't...

"You knew _,_ " he croaked and the tidal wave hit, the dam cracked, and he couldn't hold it in, the tears were already pouring down his face. " _You knew, you've seen the video, you saw it, you saw what he did, you saw what he did to me, you saw it_..."

And then she was pulling him in close and her arms were wrapping around him tight, until her necklaces and earrings and perfume were choking him, sticking sharp and jagged into his skin. And he was burying his face away into the crook of her neck and he was sobbing and shaking so hard, he thought his knees might buckle from underneath him and she was crying too, crying uncontrollably as she squeezed him so hard, he thought his spine might just snap in two.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, oh god Spencer, I'm so sorry..." she was whispering desperately into his hair and he was gasping for breath and the tears wouldn't stop coming, he couldn't stop, he couldn't stop...

"It's okay...it's okay...it's okay..."

He felt like all his bones had melted - the tight, tender spot in his chest had finally burst, flooding him with shaky, stomach turning nausea. His throat tightened and the urge to vomit grew so strong, he felt like his stomach had shot up into his throat. The warm waves of queasiness made his legs buckle in on themselves and then Garcia was supporting his skinny weight, stroking his hair, as he shuddered through the surges of sickness, retching and shivering and crying.

"It's okay... it's okay...I've got you...I've got you..."

And she led him back into her den of flickering computer screens and sat him down on a cushy little chair and he rested his head on her shoulder. Her arms were wrapped around his thin, shaking frame and he cried and cried until he had nothing left inside him to cry anymore.

* * *

It seemed like hours had passed, like it'd been a lifetime - but it had really only been ten minutes.

She was sitting on her chair now, her mascara running and he was tucked up into the seat, feeling drained and empty and exhausted. They didn't say anything. They didn't need to.

The minutes rolled on and on, until there was a soft, uncertain knock at the door. Spencer didn't look around, his head heavy and his eyelids drooping. Garcia tottered slowly across the room and opened the door an inch.

"Hey..." he heard JJ's voice whisper. "Uh...we've - we've found another lead...the Arlington's and the Port's both used the same babysitter, Sophie Mays at one point recently and she broke up with her boyfriend not so long ago. We're going to need his address...if that's...that's okay..."

"Sure...sure..." Garcia was nodding frantically back. "Yeah...yeah oh-okay...what's his - what's his name?"

"Geno Destri," she replied and the other woman nodded briskly again, wiping at her eyes. JJ made a sound in the back of her throat like she wanted to say something but she stopped herself, sensing it wasn't the right time. Nodding awkwardly, she chose to slip away down the corridor instead, as the other woman closed the door behind her.

Garcia made short work of finding the address online and rang someone up to tell them. Her voice was tight and squeaky and she ignored all attempts at more personal conversations, sitting back in her chair, her makeup a blotchy mess down across her face.

The silence filled up the room as they just sat and stared at their hands, a tired, broken mess of emotions.

And Spencer wondered if she knew...knew what had really haunted him for all these years and years. Wondered if she knew the most carefully guarded secret he'd kept locked up inside himself for so long now. Why seeing him again made everything feel so...painfully intimate...so aching and hurt.

"Ga-Garcia...?" he said and he hated how high voice had gone. She looked over at him, her eyes soft and gentle.

"Yeah?"

He swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing uncomfortably in his neck and the words were right at his tongue - right there, but he didn't want to say them...not this soft, vulnerable thing he'd kept close and protected inside his chest for so very, very long.

He had to say it. He'd have no other chance to.

"I...I..." he breathed in and exhaled, playing with the loose threads on the arm-rest of the seat. "I lied in the video..."

She stared at him, silently encouraging him to say more. He felt his eyes go damp again - he was surprised he had anything in his tear ducts left and he bit back the weak shuddery smile. When he tried to say it again, he suddenly felt small and scared, like he had all those years ago - like he was that child all over again.

"I was...I was a virgin..."

The woman's eyes were just as damp as his as he stared down at the dark fabric, unable to look at her.

"I...I...I know r-responding to it...is a physiological response which-which can result from m-mere physical contact or...or...extreme stress...but...but...it's so...disgusting that I...that I reacted and I...how could I even like what he did to me? Why did I react like that?...It's just...it's so disgusting and...and..."

He brushed at his eyes, swallowing hard. His nose was beginning to run and he wiped at it almost angrily.

"...why...why would I give away something so special to...to someone like him? It's supposed to be...it's supposed to be something...something you share with someone who loves you. And...and...and...no-one made me look him up, no-one made me ring him, no-one made me go to that place...I did that all myself...and I've got no-one else to blame for what happened but me."

And when he breathed in again, the world hurt too badly and all his old scars ripped open, torn apart and bleeding.

"And he's always going to be apart of me now," his face was a mess of tears but he didn't care, he didn't care.

"I'm always going to have this...emotional connection to him, because of something I did in...in a bid of...desperation...and...and I wish I could just...just...Garcia, Harry Reynolds took my virginity and I hate it, I just hate it so much..."

She pushed over towards him and took his hand, squeezing it tight.

"Spencer...it's..it's..." she said as the tears started rolling down her cheeks again, struggling to find her words. "I was...I was that kid who drank and...did drugs and had all this meaningless sex with so many losers and creeps who couldn't care less about me and...and I didn't respect my parents until they were gone and...and I regret it all so much but...but...Spencer...I don't know..."

She sent him a watery smile, sniffing wetly, before brushing at her damp cheeks.

"I just...I know my stupid advice's more cheesy then goddamned mozzarella but...but...I dunno...I don't let...what happened to me define who I am...and we've...we've all proven, everyone on the team...that...that...we're not just the awful things that happened to us as kids...we're more then that, okay, Spencer you're more then that, you're not a bad person, he didn't make you a bad person..."

And they were both crying again and they were being so stupid - sobbing it out in this tiny, little office. Reid didn't know what to say, what to do...and all he could do was cry with her.

"...and...and...and...everyone here loves you, they don't care about that bastard, they don't care at all and, and...I love you Spencer, I love you so much..."

Her breath had gone all tight and uncontrolled and Reid wiped madly at his eyes, sliding their fingers together.

"I...I love you too..."

She smiled weakly and squeezed his hand harder then ever, until he was sure he felt his bones clicking under her grip. They fell into a long, sniffling silence, just holding the other's hands - Reid could feel her rings digging into his skin.

"God," she wiped at her eyes, half-laughing. "I'm being ridiculous aren't I...?"

Reid looked up at her and seemed to think about it. Then he shook his head and Garcia laughed before she clambered off the chair and onto the floor, pushing her head against his skinny shoulder. They lay together silently, the stillness around them only punctuated by a wet sniff and the occasional whirl from a computer.

And she whispered to him through the blue-lighted gloom;

"It's going to be okay now."

And he just squeezed her hand silently in reply and let her wrap her arms around his shoulders, until his eyes drifted shut once more.

* * *

Around half an hour later, Geno Destri was found at his flat in a rough neigborhood, twenty minutes away from his victims. After searching the place up and down, they'd found Xavier and Charlie's bloodied clothes stuffed into a black garbage bag in his bedroom ceiling. He'd been taken in, spitting and swearing hysterically about how his girlfriend loved the kids she babysat more then she'd ever loved him.

Morgan had hissed to him about what happened to pedophiles in jail with such restrained venom in his voice, that Destri had fallen quiet immediately. He sniveled quietly to himself for the rest of the trip back to the police station.

* * *

JJ had hugged him so tight he thought she might just wring his neck, as she held back her silent, shaking tears.

"You're better then them Spence," she whispered desperately into his ear, holding onto him as tight as a vice. "You're better then all of them put together."

Rossi had been white faced and stunned, but he stopped the younger agent in the corridor one day and told him, while staring him dead in the eye; "people like him Reid, their lives are sick and goddamned meaningless, but that doesn't mean they have to infect you with their shit, okay? He's scum - the only enjoyment he gets is bringing decent people down to his level. You're a good kid. Don't let that bastard get to you, you hear me?"

He'd given him an encouraging pat on the shoulder as Spencer nodded, watery-eyed before the older man walked off again.

Prentiss had sent him little comforting smiles, bought him constant cups of coffee and patted him on the shoulder whenever she passed him in the bullpen.

"If you want to talk to us, we're always here, but...but if you don't want to, don't feel like you're being forced to do anything," she said to him in passing one afternoon. "Look...just don't ever think you're alone, Reid, cause you're not and I'll personally kick the ass of anyone who says different, alright?"

It had brought a tiny smile to the young doctor's face as she walked back to her desk again.

Morgan had returned to his role as the overprotective big brother, a role Reid was very used to him occupying by now. He'd ruffle a hand through his hair, swing a burly arm around his neck, all the while murmuring lowly, "you good kid? You can talk to me about anything, y'know?"

Spencer had nodded yes, he was fine, but of course Morgan didn't buy it.

"I know what it's like Reid..." he said to him one evening, after everyone else had left for the night and they were both getting ready to leave. Spencer had looked up from his desk, meeting his dark, earnest gaze.

"I know what it's like to feel...ashamed," he said and the fact he was opening up about something which he kept so guarded and secret, shocked him down to his very core.

"I know that feeling...that it was somehow your fault, that you somehow deserved it. But it's not true, okay? You don't need to be ashamed, you don't have to stay quiet. You're stronger then him. And don't think for a second that he made you weak, because he's just a dirty coward and he isn't worth your time, you understand?"

Spencer had stared down at his hands, licking his lips before nodding up at him.

"I know, Morgan," he whispered, feeling his throat tighten and his eyes dampen. "Thank-you."

"Don't you worry about it, kid," Morgan had replied gently as they walked off towards the elevators together.

And the very next day, Hotch had taken him into his office and ordered the man to take some time off.

"I want you to get some counseling," he told him bluntly, no-nonsense, no sugar-coating. "You can't bottle this up, Reid. You need to talk to a professional - sort through all this."

Reid nodded grimly. Hotch's stern expression had barely changed, but his eyes and voice had grown softer.

"I'm proud of the way you handled him, Reid. Not everyone could've gone in there and dealt with the situation the way you did. It's a testament to how strong you are. But you still need to be kind to yourself. You can't just trek through something like this without any help...no-one can. So you get the help you need and you know we're always there for you, okay?"

And when Reid had nodded and gotten up to leave, Hotch had patted him comfortably on the shoulder, as he walked back through to the bullpen again.

Throughout all those encounters with his team-mates, Reid had felt almost embarrassed by their attention, that old shyness niggling away in his chest, making him want to curl up and away from their concern. But underneath all that childish self-consciousness, was something warmer and safer then what he'd ever felt in a long time.

He wasn't alone. And if he failed...on the chance he crumbled...he'd have his family around to help him up again.

That thought made the whole world seem calm, instead of crawling and filthy and dirty. It just filled him with something that felt like peace.

And now it was Monday, and days and weeks and months had passed since he'd run into Garcia's office, with the man's sticky fingers sliding deep into the dark crevices of his mind.

He was stopping by a coffee shop to get his morning caffeine hit, waiting with his fingers tapping impatiently at the counter. While he was waiting, a newspaper caught his eye and feeling bored, he picked it up. He flicked through it disinterestedly, eyes absorbing the information - storing it away to bring up at some random moment, later on in time.

As he was reading through the pages, something jumped out at him. He paused, turning his head to the side to read the tiny lettering of the article more clearly.

 _Man found dead in apartment, police confirm suicide_.

His heart jumped to his mouth all at once.

_Harrison Reynolds, aged 50 was found by police at 6.30 a.m., Saturday morning, having hung himself in his apartment. His body was found, after neighbors complained of a unexplained smell from his residence. Reynolds left behind one brother, Bryson Reynolds, one sister, Deanna Richardson and a niece and nephew, Cindy and Rudy Richardson. He had no partner or children._

"Reid?"

He looked up as the barista passed his drink over the counter. He took the cup with a thin smile and sat down slowly at a table, staring at a point on the wall.

He felt numb.

There were no feelings of satisfaction...no sadness, no anger, no hatred.

He just felt...empty.

He sipped at his drink and burnt his tongue immediately, barely noticing the pain.

Should he feel pity?

Regret?

Disappointment that no-one had ever helped the man, no-one had paid him the attention he craved?

He didn't know what to feel.

Did the man feel ashamed in those last moments, with the rope tied around his neck? Did he feel the same self-hatred that  _he_  had all those years ago, colt-legged and doe-eyed, crying with a strange man in a strange place, trapped all by himself like a rabbit with a wolf?

Did Reynolds take that shame down to his grave?

He took another sip from his coffee, the burning, bitter liquid filling up his mouth.

He didn't know. He'd just didn't know.

He got up and stared down at his shoes for a few seconds, his mind a white, blank void. Swallowing and squeezing the coffee cup in his long fingers, he gave his head a shake to clear it and made his way towards the cafe door, walking back out into the bustling, city streets.

Leaving that leering old man with his filthy words and groping hands in the crumpled old newspaper behind him.

Leaving him behind to rot in his memories forever.


End file.
